Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
They’re Still Growing: Downtown Vertical Farming Company Set To Increase Production After Moving To Former Market Fresh Site
A few years ago, Ernessi Farms was just an up-and-coming hydroponic grower of herbs that utilized the (at least then) little known method of vertical farming — right from a downtown basement. Since then? Well, business has blossomed.
By Ian Stepleton | Ripon Commonwealth Press | July 9, 2020
A few years ago, Ernessi Farms was just an up-and-coming hydroponic grower of herbs that utilized the (at least then) little known method of vertical farming — right from a downtown basement.
Since then?
Well, business has blossomed.
“It’s been pretty intense. From where we started, just messing around with stuff in my basement ... to moving [the business] here, it’s been something else,” said Bryan Ernst, owner of Ernessi Farms in Ripon. “It’s been very humbling, to learn all the things you don’t know as a new business owner, but it’s been great.”
With such growth, Ernessi needed a new home.
Later this year, it will have one.
Ernessi Farms has finalized the purchase of the former Market Fresh property at 111 E. Fond du Lac St.
“That building will give us the ability to more than quadruple our production,” Ernst said, adding that it’s going to enable the business to grow into some cutting-edge farming technologies such as machine learning and robotics.
It’s a project that’s been in the works for some time, with word of the possibility first coming to light before Thanksgiving 2019.
“We’ve been working on this ever since even before we talked at the City Council meeting [in November],” Ernst said, explaining that the current location simply had been maxed out in terms of production space and electrical capacity. “That was part of the reason we [started offering] mushrooms — we couldn’t build any more of our growing racks ... It’s been like this for us for over a year while we planned this expansion.”
Read the full story in the July 9, 2020 edition of the Ripon Commonwealth Press.
Ian Stepleton is the editor of the Ripon Commonwealth Press, and been with the paper since September 2000. Starting with fall 2016, he also is an adjunct professor of journalism at Ripon College, and advisor to the college's newspaper, the College Days.
The Future Of Food, What Role Will You Play?
Urban agriculture is the process in which food production takes place within the city itself. Instead of relying on rural farmers to grow, harvest and transport food to city centers, all of this is done close to the consumer
July 20, 2020
COVID19 has highlighted the vulnerabilities of our food system, ones that will continue to evolve as climate change progresses. As we look for solutions, several factors should shape our decision making.
Global food systems are responsible for one-third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Cities consume 78 percent of the world’s energy and produce more than 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (UN)
By 2050, it is estimated that nearly 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas (UN).
Today, the average age of North American farmers is around 60 years old, with many nearing retirement.
What would you say if there was a solution that would address these challenges while also supporting the economy, helping us reach climate goals, and improving community health and well-being?
Urban agriculture is the process in which food production takes place within the city itself. Instead of relying on rural farmers to grow, harvest, and transport food to city centers, all of this is done close to the consumer. Urban agriculture can take various forms including backyard, balcony, and community gardens, rooftop farms and greenhouses, and more recently, the growing trend of indoor vertical agriculture using hydroponics.
During World War I and II, the “Victory Garden” campaign encouraged citizens to grow food in open urban spaces to support the country’s war efforts. By 1945, 20 million victory gardens produced 40% of America’s fresh vegetables. Once the wars finished, we saw the move away from growing food locally and towards a more industrialized food system where a few large farms produce most of our food at economies of scale. This way of producing food is largely responsible for disconnecting humans from their food and for environmental degradation.
Today, during COVID19, we are seeing a resurgence of “victory gardens” as a response to the unpredictability of the pandemic on our food supply. Communities are also starting to understand the importance of being more self-sufficient and supporting the local economy.
So how do we take this renewed interest in local food to the next level and encourage more urban farms and gardens in urban areas? In addition to policy support, we need the tools to equip the next generation of farmers. An organization that is supporting the transition is Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC), the industry association for professionals in the green infrastructure industry. Green infrastructure refers to using nature and natural systems to tackle urban challenges such as stormwater, the urban heat island effect, and air quality.
GRHC is creating the tools to help professionals maximize the return on investment for green infrastructure projects while demonstrating how to design for optimal ecosystem services and community benefits. Green infrastructure needs to be part of the green recovery as it is uniquely positioned to help city regions adapt to climate change and create jobs. Urban agriculture is a more productive form of green infrastructure that can take any project to the next level and support local food production, reduce food insecurity and reduce a city’s carbon footprint.
The Introduction to Rooftop Urban Agriculture training course is a first for the green building industry as it integrates green infrastructure and urban agriculture concepts. The course examines the history and benefits of urban agriculture and highlights various types of rooftop farms, design requirements, and business models. The course features rooftop farm case studies on Brooklyn Grange, Lufa Farms, Ryerson Urban Farm and more.
With the success of the online course, GRHC is now hosting an Urban and Rooftop Agriculture Virtual Symposium on Thursday, July 23. The event brings together professionals from diverse backgrounds involved in mainstreaming urban agriculture.
Top Leaf Farms is a regenerative farmer-led design team creating built environment food system solutions that are productive, beautiful and resilient in the face of climate change. Benjamin Fahrer the Principle will share project case studies and farm design tips!
Universities are the ideal space for urban agriculture research and education. Ryerson Urban Farm Operations Coordinator, Jayne Miles, will dive into the logistics of running the quarter-acre rooftop farm and what is coming next!
Alex Speigel is a Partner at Windmill Development Group who is sharing two case studies on integrating a meaningful strategy of urban agriculture in mixed-use developments
Have you heard of Agritecture? They are a global consulting company that specializes in building integrated agriculture projects. Yara Nagi, Agritecture’s Operations Director, has been involved in more than 60 urban farm projects where she develops the feasibility studies for economic models.
To learn more and to register for the Urban and Rooftop Agriculture Symposium visit https://greenroofs.org/virtualevents/agriculture
The potential of urban agriculture to transform our cities has yet to be fully recognized by decision-makers. Food can be used as a lever to solve numerous urban challenges and we need to rapidly start implementing these strategies. The green recovery from COVID19 will not happen without drastic changes to our food system, what role will you play?
Tagged: urban agriculture, virtual events, green infrastructure, food production, food systems, rooftop farm, rooftop garden, urban farm, Top Leaf Farms, Agritecture, Agritecture Consulting, Windmill Developments, Ryerson Urban Farm, Ryerson Urban Farm Living Lab, Jayne Miles, Alex Speigel, Benjamin Fahrer, green recovery, ecosystem services, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities
Indoor Agtech :: Innovation Summit :: iGrow News Partner Discount
By sharing best practice from around the globe, and facilitating new connections and collaborations, the summit offers an invaluable platform to develop new business and accelerate projects across the Indoor AgTech ecosystem
Hear From And Connect With International Thought Leaders Including:
Strapline:
Connecting Technology & Business to Create Healthy, Resilient Food Systems
Mission Statement
The Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit is going virtual! This year’s summit will be live online on July 23, 2020, providing an essential opportunity for the industry to meet, network, and exchange ideas at this critical time for our industry.
The world’s leading farm operators, food retailers, and investors will present live, before hosting virtual discussion groups on the emerging trends and technologies that will shape your business as we emerge from the current crisis into a redesigned food system:
Key Themes:
Finding Growth in Crisis: Responding to a Rapidly Changing Food Landscape
Scaling Up: Co-locating Food Production and Distribution Centers
Enhancing Nutritional Value: Towards a Perfect Plant Recipe
Optimizing Seeds for Indoor Agriculture: Breeding a Competitive Advantage
Analytics and the Cloud: Digital Integration to Optimize Indoor Agriculture
Robotics: Developing a Contactless Food System
Energy Consumption: Driving Efficiency and Economic Viability
Financing Growth: Can Capital Keep Pace with Industry Demand?
Consumer Awareness: How to Build a “Holistic” Indoor Brand
All participants can schedule video 1-1 meetings with potential partners and clients throughout the summit, and for an extended period before and after the sessions.
By sharing best practice from around the globe, and facilitating new connections and collaborations, the summit offers an invaluable platform to develop new business and accelerate projects across the Indoor AgTech ecosystem.
We Are Proud To Be A Marketing Partner For Indoor AgTech
Save 10% With Our Discount Code UAN10
Summit website: https://indooragtechnyc.com/
Registration:
One summit pass Indoor AgTech: $195.00
Start-Up pass: $95.00 / Please contact alexander@rethinkevents.com to enquire about the criteria to qualify for special rates.
https://indooragtechnyc.com/register/
Thursday, July 23rd, 2020
10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
© 2020 Rethink Events Ltd
THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS
Platinum Partner:
Silver Partner:
Marketing and Media Partners:
Food Production Will Be Part of
Daily Urban Life Again!
iGrow.News, partner of indoor agtech innovation summit, wishes you an unforgettable event.
Podcast + Story: The Power of Urban Farming
Can cities grow a lot more of their own food? Should they? The creators of the Gastropod podcast investigate.
BY CYNTHIA GRABER AND NICOLA TWILLEY
CRAIG F. WALKER/GLOBE STAFF
In March, as the United States began to lock down, shoppers met an unfamiliar and disturbing sight: empty shelves where bags of flour, jugs of milk, and packages of chicken breasts used to be. These shortages, combined with the “Groundhog Day”-like experience of being home day in, day out, for months on end, inspired a wave of gardening novices to try growing vegetables at home — and we at Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history, wanted to join in. To our dismay, we discovered that some of the plants we’d hoped to grow had long since sold out, like bags of flour before them, in what has been hailed as the great COVID-19 Victory Garden comeback.
This sudden, shared urge to grow food in the middle of America’s cities intrigued us — enough to make an episode on urban agriculture, featured above. As the creators of a food podcast, we’re well aware of the harms caused by the intensive, industrial system of agriculture that feeds America, from the food miles racked up by the average spinach leaf to the underpaid farmworkers who harvest it. Could the solution to these problems lie in diversifying where food is grown? Advocates claim that urban agriculture, which has been expanding in many ways in recent years, yields healthier diets, environmental benefits, and a host of more intangible outcomes, from beautification to food sovereignty. We couldn’t help but wonder: Might this spontaneous efflorescence of COVID Victory Gardens be part of a genuine shift, as America’s city-dwellers begin to feed themselves?
And, more importantly, is urban agriculture really the panacea our food system needs?
History provides some clues. The World War II Victory Gardens to which today’s COVID gardens have been compared were far from the first American urban garden movement. In the 1890s, faced with hunger and rioting following a stock market panic, Detroit’s mayor Hazen S. Pingree offered vacant lots to the city’s poor to grow food — a popular scheme that became known as the Potato Patch Plan. A few decades later, the Liberty Gardens effort of World War I urged newly urbanized Americans to grow vegetables to support the war.
But neither of these initiatives compared to Victory Gardens, the largest and most popular home gardening effort in the country’s history. Encouraged to pick up shovels and hoes by ubiquitous advertising campaigns, horticultural classes at city halls, and the patriotic urge to save commercial canned food for the troops, more than two-thirds of Americans planted seeds in windowsill pots, backyard patches, city parks, corporate factory campuses, and alongside railways.
The results were impressive: an estimated 43 percent of all the produce that Americans consumed in 1943 came from Victory Gardens. Not self-sufficiency, certainly, but enough to make a huge difference in the country’s food supply. Yet, as soon as the war ended, “whoosh!” said Anastasia Day, a historian of the movement. “They disappeared almost overnight.” Out of the hundreds of thousands of Victory Gardens that sprang up during the war years, only two remain, the oldest of which still occupies seven acres on Boston’s Fenway.
This makes more sense, Day told us, if you look at how those gardening efforts were framed. Contemporary discussions about urban farms position them as an alternative foodway, one that offers a stronger connection to nature, the possibility of regional self-sufficiency, and eco-friendly, organic produce. By contrast, Day told us that Victory Gardens were promoted as temporary replacement food factories for the war effort, in language that mimicked the country’s obsession with science and industry. And so, once the immediate need passed, home gardeners were happy to hand off the business of growing food to companies that could farm more efficiently. Many Victory Gardeners traded their urban veggie patches for the post-war era’s suburban lawns and white picket fences.
JAMEL MOSELY: Leah Penniman, farm manager, and co-director at Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, N.Y.
Urban gardening and farming largely fell out of favor over the next decades, and as it did, Americans missed out on its many benefits, said Leah Penniman, farm manager and co-director at Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, N.Y., and author of “Farming While Black.” Those benefits include, but extend well beyond, the joy of biting into a sun-warmed tomato. “It’s also the opportunity to get exercise, to be outside and feel connected to the earth, to have a meaningful activity, to engage with your loved ones,” she said.
Penniman told us that many African Americans who moved to northern cities during the Great Migration did try to grow food, and some succeeded, despite a lack of access to land and credit, as well as other obstacles created by systemic racism. Plenty of others, however, shied away from gardening. “For many people, there’s this visceral reaction to land, because land got mixed up with the oppression that took place on the land,” she said. “But to have a garden on your own terms, to grow food for your community that you find delicious — this is the process of healing from that trauma.”
According to Raychel Santo, a Johns Hopkins researcher and co-author of a recent analysis of urban agriculture, the evidence for such socio-cultural benefits from urban agriculture is overwhelming. Based on the more than 200 studies she reviewed, these benefits included getting to know neighbors, meeting people from different backgrounds, and being involved in something productive. “But they’re hard to quantify in numbers,” Santo told us.
The result is that, while anyone who has volunteered at a community garden or coaxed baby seedlings out of the ground understands the power of growing food, urban gardens are often seen as fuzzy, feel-good projects, rather than being taken seriously as an alternative mode of food production. Still, at least one health benefit can be quantified: Santo told us that studies have shown that city-dwellers who participate in some form of urban farming eat more vegetables. History offers support for this finding: During World War II, Americans consumed more produce then they have eaten before or since — at least in part because of the success of Victory Gardens. Given that only one in 10 Americans currently eats enough vegetables to meet federal regulations — and thus reduce their risk for many leading causes of illness and death, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes — the potential health benefits of expanding urban agriculture are significant.
Good for you, but good for the planet?
The environmental benefits of growing food in cities seem like they should be easier to pin down. Certainly, Santo said, like most urban green spaces, farms and vegetable gardens boost biodiversity, improve rainwater drainage, filter air pollution, and reduce the urban heat island effect. They also offer another tangible good, albeit one that can be challenging to implement: the opportunity to turn food scraps into compost and thus close the loop on some of the city’s waste.
Logic dictates that eating locally grown produce would also reduce emissions from food miles — but evidence for that has thus far been spotty. One widely cited analysis, published in 2008 by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, found that transportation accounted for only 11 percent of food’s carbon footprint. The authors used this finding to conclude that eating less meat and dairy was substantially more climate-friendly than eating local — but their analysis failed to take into account the greenhouse gas emissions associated with refrigerated warehouses and food spoilage. “There’s a lot of debate in this area,” Santo said. “I would say the literature is not very clear.”
Neil Mattson, professor of horticulture at Cornell University, is halfway through a three-year project that aims to tease out these nuances, at least when it comes to growing leafy greens in northern U.S. cities year-round versus shipping them from California. Lettuce is usually a seasonal harvest in community gardens, but, in recent years, there’s been increasing interest — and investment — in more high-tech urban farms. Some of these facilities are greenhouses, but others, often called “vertical farms,” resemble automated food factories, with rows of baby greens growing under glowing LEDs and in perfectly calibrated climactic conditions inside skyscrapers and tunnels from London to Tokyo.
SALWAN GEORGESA worker harvests basil inside a Gotham Greens facility in New York City.
This is where the promise of urban farming meets its most significant challenge: replicating the sun. When it comes to more traditional greenhouses, Mattson’s research shows that the energy needed to provide optimal heat and humidity levels is similar to the transportation energy of trucking lettuce across the country, making their carbon footprint at least comparable. (He is still working on a full life-cycle analysis that includes everything from the embodied cost of the glass and steel used in greenhouse construction to the emissions from transport refrigeration units.)
But those fully controlled vertical farms so beloved by techies, architects, and VC-funded entrepreneurs? Mattson has found providing sufficient electric light for photosynthesis and controlling the humidity sucks up twice the energy of growing lettuce in California and shipping it across the country. Until we get significantly more energy from renewable resources or invent dramatically more efficient lighting, even the most advanced vertical farms aren’t necessarily more sustainable than California’s Imperial Valley.
That said, both vertical farms and heated greenhouses do use significantly less water than California farms — 10 times less water, according to Mattson — and, as the West becomes more arid, water will likely become a limiting factor. In the future, Mattson says, climate-controlled urban farms of all sorts may well look like increasingly attractive options. They might be priced out of real estate in downtown Boston or New York, but traveling just an hour or two out of the city can connect growers to much cheaper places for indoor agriculture.
Mattson pointed out that our current food system is extremely centralized, meaning that the majority of produce is grown in a relatively small area. If drought, floods, or an E. coli outbreak hit, supermarket shelves are left empty across the nation. “Producing some proportion of our food in cities could make for a more robust system,” he said.
Self-sufficiency
Critics argue that we only get about 10 percent of our calories from vegetables and fruits, and so cities can neither feed themselves nor transform the country’s farming systems. Even the most passionate urban agriculture advocates, such as Keep Growing Detroit’s Tepfirah Rushdan, don’t imagine that cities will grow and process all their own grains. But could cities at least grow the vegetables they need? Here the data look promising. Rushdan told us that Keep Growing Detroit’s goal is food sovereignty, meaning that more than half the produce consumed in the city is grown there. Though that’s not yet reality — the organization says the results of their last produce weigh-in shows the city growing around 5 to 10 percent of what’s eaten — a Michigan State University study demonstrates that the city could theoretically supply nearly two-thirds of the demand. Similarly, researchers in New England have mapped out how the region could produce up to half of its vegetables in urban and suburban plots by 2060.
ERIN CLARK FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
Kevin Washington, 14, waters plants at the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative in Detroit. The farm has taken over three acres of vacant lots and turned them into a green oasis of fruit trees, vegetables, and a sensory garden. Solely run by volunteers, the farm gives back all of the produce to the community for free.
Elsewhere, researchers have calculated that empty land in Cleveland could provide half the city’s fresh vegetables, and if commercial rooftops and a small amount of residential land were added, up to 100 percent — plus 94 percent of the city’s eggs and chickens. This spring, a study showed that Sheffield, England, has sufficient vacant land to grow enough fruits and vegetables to feed all its residents. Of course, urban farming will look different in different cities: In Boston, it might include city farms along the lines of the Fowler Clark Epstein Farm in Mattapan, as well as high-tech greenhouses on the outskirts of the city, such as Little Leaf Farms a half-hour away. There’ll be rooftop beehives, like those on top of the Lenox Hotel, and community plots in the South End. New York City’s expensive real estate might push much urban farming to the periphery; Detroit, where 17 percent of the city is considered vacant, is perfectly situated to expand internally.
Finally, though we agree with critics that putting your hands in the dirt won’t solve all the problems of the industrial agricultural system, we believe it could help, by connecting people to their food. “We do have to do both,” Rushdan told us. “We have to make time to focus on local production, and then we have to make time to address the larger systematic issues.”
The urban gardeners we spoke with hope that COVID-19 gardens won’t just be a temporary fad, but will, as Penniman put it, trigger “an awakening as to the type of structural changes that we need to make to have an equitable, just, and sustainable food system.”
After all, as Anastasia Day pointed out, World War II’s Victory Gardens may have vanished practically overnight, but the children who grew up tending them turned into adults who celebrated the first Earth Day in 1970.
Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley are journalists who host the Gastropod podcast, which explores the science and history of food.
USA: FLORIDA - City of Orlando Approves Lease For 18-acre 4Roots Farm Campus In The Packing District
Orlando's Packing District is a massive, rapidly developing new residential area with one big planned perk: an 18-acre farm, which was approved by the City of Orlando on Monday
Posted By Dave Plotkin
July 8, 2020
If you're the type of person who appreciates some good news, how about a little urban-farm update to brighten your day?
Orlando's Packing District is a massive, rapidly developing new residential area with one big planned perk: an 18-acre farm, which was approved by the City of Orlando on Monday.
The new lease is a germination, if you will, allowing 4Roots Farm Campus, a "unique urban farm unlike anything seen in the country," to finally begin sprouting a new discovery center, convention and event barn, teaching and demo kitchen, a farm-to-table restaurant, community greens for farmers markets, live concerts, art expos and flexible classrooms, as well as wetlands improvements to maintain the land. Led by John Rivers, the CEO of 4 Rivers Restaurant Group, the campus will focus on creating a sustainable regional food system they say will tackle food waste, farmland erosion, farming declines and local hunger. The foundation is leveraging partnerships to create agricultural education programs to inspire young farmers and create health and nutritional awareness.
The video announcement for the project looks amazing:
In March, 4Roots and 4 Rivers combined to launch their Feed the Need Florida initiative, which has served more than a million meals across Florida, creating more than 320 jobs. That project has already expanded from Tuesdays at St. Luke's United Methodist Church to add Fridays at the Plaza Live parking lot.
We first reported about the farm campus in November 2019, when the 4R Foundation announced plans for the 40-acre farm. Site work on the farm is expected to begin in the fall.
The $700 million, 202-acre Packing District itself — centered at North Orange Blossom Trail and Princeton Street, just west of College Park — was created when the city annexed the property in 1996. Since then, Dr. Phillips Charities has committed $1 million to the development of the farm campus alone."
When we donated land for the park to the City, the original intent for the southern portion was to include a site for educational farming, agriculture, and more," says Ken Robinson, president, and CEO of Dr. Phillips Charities. "The vision we have seen from John and his team truly shows the passion, commitment, and shared values in creating a campus that aligns with our focus on building health, wellness, and community throughout the district."
The district will someday be home to a YMCA Family Center, a 100-acre park, nature trails, and the 4Roots Farm. The Southern Box Food Hall restaurant and brewery will be housed in a 1930s-era building that once housed the Dr. Phillips orange-crate factory.
You can find out more at the 4Roots Farm Campus or follow the developments on Facebook and Instagram.
Farm to Fork: This Millennial Urban Farmer Grows Vegetables On Carpark Rooftops in Singapore
The ongoing battle against the COVID-19 outbreak and the resultant lockdowns imposed in many countries worldwide have put the spotlight on Singapore’s dependence on food imports and its vulnerability to global supply shocks.
Singapore Announced New Measures in April Aimed At Speeding Up Local Food Production Over The Next Six Months To Two Years.
By Vulcan Post
June 25, 2020
The ongoing battle against the COVID-19 outbreak and the resultant lockdowns imposed in many countries worldwide have put the spotlight on Singapore’s dependence on food imports and its vulnerability to global supply shocks.
The government has repeatedly assured its citizens that Singapore has sufficient food supplies, amid bouts of panic buying that gripped the country when Singapore raised the DORSCON level to Orange.
Although the panic buying has now eased, another cause for concern is that Singapore has a population of about 5.7 million people but it only produces about 10% of its food needs.
To tackle this food crisis, Singapore announced new measures in April aimed at speeding up local food production over the next six months to two years.
This includes providing a SGD 30 million grant to support production of eggs, leafy vegetables, and fish in the shortest time possible, and identifying alternative farming spaces, such as industrial areas and vacant sites.
As part of that project, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the Housing Development Board (HDB) have launched a tender in May for rooftop farms on public housing car parks.
This means that the rooftops of a handful of multi-story carparks in Singapore will be converted for use to farm vegetables and other food crops from the later part of this year.
Farming hits the roof
The move to find alternative farming space in land-constrained Singapore is part of their strategy to meet the country’s 30 by 30 goal, which is to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030.
Local agritech startup Citiponics did not take part in the tender this time round, though it piloted SFA’s multi-story carpark rooftop farm project in Ang Mo Kio last year.
According to Danielle Chan, co-founder of Citiponics, its 1,800 square metres farm atop the carpark at Block 700 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 can grow between three and four tonnes of vegetables a month.
They grow up to 25 different types of vegetables naturally without the use of pesticides.
“We currently specialize in growing our own crossbreed of lettuces—Georgina Lettuces—and have also been growing other varieties such as nai bai, Italian basil, and Thai basil based on customers’ requests,” said Danielle.
Sharing more about the Ang Mo Kio site, she said they have been steadily producing pesticide-free vegetables on a monthly basis, supplying to nearby residents and consumers islandwide.
Rooftop farm in Ang Mo Kio. Photo courtesy of Citiponics via Vulcan Post.
Beyond contributing to local food production, this pilot project has also generated “positivity,” which stems from community involvement when visitors get to know and see their food source.
“It brings us great joy to see the senior citizens enjoying their time as they work on farming activities as well as the support we have received from visitors who come to our community markets to self-harvest their produce,” said Danielle.
She added that they hire senior citizens from AWWA Community Home as well as part-time workers to help with farm maintenance.
“We believe that even if one does not have the technical agriculture know-how, they should be able to contribute to food production as well.”
Citiponics is a Singapore-grown urban farming company that started in 2016, which aims to grow safe produce through its zero-waste farming process.
It is co-founded by Danielle and her family friend Teo Hwa Kok, who has a “rich experience in agriculture.”
When agriculture meets tech
The 26-year-old is a National University of Singapore (NUS) graduate, who has worked in technology startups across Singapore and New York, as well as technology consulting companies such as IBM.
But with her tech background, why did she choose to be a ‘farmer’?
“I grew up in an agricultural environment and as such, the farm was always my playground. Growing up, I never had to worry about buying vegetables from the supermarket or doubting my food source. I had the blessing of getting all my vegetables supplies directly from the farm,” explained Danielle.
“Having personally witnessed the wastage as well as the inefficiencies in the traditional farming industry, I knew I wanted to go back to the farming industry to change the way farming is done traditionally as well as to share the blessing of the farm-to-table experience with others.”
Her tech background didn’t go to waste though. She made it a point to integrate technology into Citiponic’s farming processes.
Citiponics at NTUC FairPrice. Photo courtesy of Ministry of Trade and Industry via Vulcan Post.
They have a proprietary vertical farming technology called Aqua-Organic System (AOS). It falls under a solid-based soilless culture, which is different from the likes of traditional farming and hydroponic farming system.
As every drop of water is kept in a close loop within the growing system, it helps to minimize water consumption, using one-tenth of hydroponics water consumption and one-hundredth of traditional farming water consumption.
Due to its vertical nature, it is also able to be seven times more productive than traditional farming.
As it is specially designed to provide a natural farming environment in order to preserve the nutrients value and natural taste of the vegetables, the technology is also pollutant-free and pesticide-free. It’s also anti-mosquito breeding, which makes it very suitable for farming within community and neighborhood areas.
“The AOS farming technology removes the complex technicalities of farming and we wanted to keep it that way to allow people of all ages and backgrounds to have a great experience when they get to farm with our systems,” said Danielle.
COVID-19 does not pose a huge business challenge
All of Citiponic’s farmed produce are segmented to home deliveries, nearby residents, and selected NTUC FairPrice outlets.
Despite their limited farming space, Danielle said that they see a constant stream of supply and sales.
It’s not so much a business challenge, she added, but the need to adapt to the new normal, hence the introduction of home deliveries and engaged logistics channel.
Although COVID-19 does not greatly impact its business, it serves as a timely reminder on the importance of accelerating our local food production.
This pandemic serves a time for us to reflect on how we can enhance our food resilience strategies.
Singapore steps up to be more food resilient
As Singapore is still largely dependent on food imports, the rooftop farming tender and local food production grants are definitely the right steps forward.
According to SFA, Singapore currently secures food supply from about 170 countries.
For instance, Singapore now imports oranges from Egypt, milk powder from Uruguay, eggs from Poland and shrimps from Saudi Arabia as part of its efforts to broaden food supplies.
Danielle is well-aware that food security, food sustainability and food safety are global issues, so she hopes to bring Citiponics’ farming solution to more countries.
Citiponics’ Georgina lettuce sold at NTUC FairPrice. Photo courtesy of Citiponics via Vulcan Post.
“We are not only focused on food production, but also becoming an agritech solution provider. We have developed agriculture technology and designed farming solutions that are suitable for tropical countries, and hope to extend the applicability of our expertise and farming technology to temperate countries as well,” she added.
Citiponics is also looking at scaling its operations to enhance its contribution to local food resilience and grow more communities through the introduction of hyperlocal Citiponics urban vertical farms in various neighborhoods of Singapore.
“We envision Citiponics as a supportive environment that is able to cultivate the next generation of urban farmers and agritech innovators.”
This article was first published by Vulcan Post.
5 Ways Urban Farming Empowers Communities For Sustainability
Urban farming has the potential to empower cities and communities all over the globe. From backyard farms to community gardens to vertical farming, the possibilities of growing sustainable foods are endless.
Urban farming has the potential to empower cities and communities all over the globe. From backyard farms to community gardens to vertical farming, the possibilities of growing sustainable foods are endless. As more and more urban areas start to implement local farms in their areas, the communities will reel in a wide range of benefits. In this article, we’re going to cover some of the major benefits that communities will experience when using urban farming.
Provides Educational Opportunities
As a society, we are disconnected from our foods; we don’t know where the foods we eat come from. Urban farming will not only teach communities how to grow their own foods, but also will establish a clear understanding of current food systems. This is an incredible learning tool for families to adopt into their livelihood because it will empower them to spread the word to others about the world-changing benefits of urban farming.
Offers Food Security
One of the most reassuring aspects of urban farming is that it bridges the gap of food access. Many densely populated cities are hundreds of miles away from conventional farming areas. With urban farming, these cities will have direct access to food sources in their area. This also allows for reduced food prices since no travel is needed to get the crops from one place to another.
Increases Food Quality
With the ability to have local farms, members will be able to grow a wide variety of foods that aren’t usually seen in supermarkets. Growing heirloom crops or foods with a lower shelf life can’t be done with conventional farming because they won’t last the travel time. Urban farming solves this issue by allowing the community to plant and harvest foods of their own choices without having to worry about shelf life. This allows communities to enjoy fresh, nutritious foods that they may have never seen in a supermarket before.
Creates Job Opportunities
The growth of urban farming will increase the need for community members to get involved, thus creating jobs that directly benefit the city itself. Urban cities tend to have higher cases of poverty and hunger. By establishing local urban farms in cities, more people will be able to get jobs and to learn about how to grow their own food back at home. This will stimulate the local economy and provide an educational outlet to the community.
Reduces Carbon Emissions
With local farms on the rise, there will be less of a need to transport foods to cities. Urban farming will help cut down on the immense amount of fossil fuels that’s needed to transport food from one place to another. This is a great opportunity to reduce a carbon footprint while also empowering communities to grow their own local food sources.
Cities across the nation are beginning to see the value in urban farming, and some have even implemented their own farming systems. We at the Nick Greens Grow team understand the importance of urban cities having direct access to their own food sources. Want to learn more about the future of farming? Subscribe to our blog for weekly updates and to our YouTube channel to learn about educational farming techniques.
#urbanfarming #urbanfarm #locallygrown #microfarm #gardening #fromthegarden #gardengrown #growyourownveggies #homegardening #urbangardening #backyardgarden #veggiegarden #growingfood #veggiepatch #urbanfarmer #localgrownfood #growlocal
Vertical Farming With Hydroponics
In recent years, urban farming using vertical hydroponic systems has gained a lot of attention. Using the latest technology, these hydroponic farms are able to optimize plant growth, providing fresh, local produce, while minimizing water usage, space, transport, and pesticides
In recent years, urban farming using vertical hydroponic systems has gained a lot of attention. Using the latest technology, these hydroponic farms are able to optimize plant growth, providing fresh, local produce, while minimizing water usage, space, transport, and pesticides. However, whether hydroponic farms are superior to traditional farming methods and whether they can replace them has been subject to controversy.
AeroFarms vertical farming facility source: https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2019/5733085/aerofarms/
What is a hydroponic system?
Hydroponics refers to the soilless techniques used to grow plants. There are a number of varieties of hydroponic systems, including aquaponics where live fish are used to provide fertilizer for the plants, traditional hydroponics which involves adding chemical solutions of the required nutrients, and aeroponics which uses a nutrient-infused mist. Hydroponic systems can be grown in a greenhouse using natural light, or more commonly in a vertical system using LED lights, to save space.
Aerofarms aeroponic system uses a nutrient infused mist. Source: https://aerofarms.com/technology/
Advantages of hydroponics
1. No soil
The earth has a finite coverage of arable land on which crops can be grown. Climate change and destructive farming practices cause loss of this soil. Soil erosion is one of the greatest threats to food security. As a result there is a growing demand for alternative, innovative approaches to provide food for the growing population. Hydroponics is one of these, providing a soilless system that can be used anywhere, particularly suited to cities.
2. Transport
As previously mentioned, hydroponic systems offer the advantage of the ability to be grow anywhere, even in the middle of a soilless city. As a result, fresh produce can be made available locally, sold in restaurants and farmers markets with minimal transport. This helps minimise greenhouse gas emissions as well as minimise nutrient loss and damage of produce, as leafy greens are quick to lose their nutritional content once harvested. Better yet, many hydroponic farms allow transport of the live produce to the market, providing the freshest possible option.
3. Reduced water usage
Hydroponic systems can use up to 10 times less water compared to traditional soil-based cultivation due to the recirculation of the water used. This offers a huge advantage as water shortage is of great concern, with field-based agriculture being one of the greatest consumers of freshwater sources - up to 80% of ground and surface waters in the U.S. Therefore, hydroponics offers a sustainable option for crop cultivation, with the growing population causing an increasing demand for food and water.
4. Controlled environment
Growing indoors allows better control of temperature, light, air composition and pests. As a result, crop growth rates, quality and yield can be maximised and can also be grown year-round. Therefore, these indoor farms can play an important role in filling the market gap, providing fresh produce in all seasons.
5. Less space
Indoor hydroponic farms are typically grown vertically, with LED lights for each layer of crops, this allows maximum usage of small spaces making it a viable option for growing crops in the city homes, in a spare room or basement. Moreover, in hydroponic systems plant roots don’t spread out as much in the search for nutrients like when grown in soil, as the roots are suspended directly in nutrient-rich solution. As a result, it is possible to grow crops much closer together, saving space.
6. Less need for herbicides and pesticides
Due to the controlled, soilless environment, pests and disease are minimised. As a result there is little need for use of chemical herbicides and pesticides which is a big bonus for health and food safety, with often no need to even wash the harvested crops.
Disadvantages and challenges of hydroponics
1. Organics debate
It has been subject to debate whether hydroponic systems should be permitted organic certification. Standard hydroponics typically uses a chemical nutrient solution, which are often not organically sourced. Moreover, it is controversial whether the absence of the soil microbiome may effect the food quality, with unknown impacts on the human microbiome, as increasing evidence suggests that the microbes we obtain from food may be an important contribution to our health.
2. limited crop variety
Due to the high light demands of fruiting plants, often requiring a wider light spectrum with a longer growth period, hydroponic technology is currently mostly limited to leafy greens due to costs. Therefore, hydroponics can in no way be seen as a complete replacement for traditional farming methods. Despite this, technological advancements are constantly improving hydroponic growth, possibly making it a viable option for a wider range of crops in the future.
3. Technical knowledge and difficulties
Understanding of the technical set-up of the hydroponics system and plant growth requirements is essential for preventing system failures. Leakages can occur and different crop types may require vastly different nutrient, temperature and lighting conditions. In addition, the close proximity of water and electrics poses risk and careful, regular monitoring of the system is required.
4. initial expenses
Although setting up a hydroponic system can be done on a budget with minimal costs, on a commercial scale, the specialist equipment required can be expensive. After the initial set up costs will be limited mainly to electricity and nutrient costs, the increased plant growth rates and yield often outweigh these added costs.
Concluding remarks
Despite the number of challenges and limitations associated with vertical farming with hydroponic systems, it still offers great potential to contribute to a more sustainable future of farming. It is important to emphasize that vertical farming and hydroponics is in no way a viable replacement for traditional farming practices but an alternative option, particularly suited to cities to help support the demand for fresh, locally-sourced healthy greens, with the growing population. Technological advancements are expected to further improve the costs and efficiency of plant growth in hydroponic systems, giving it high hopes for the future.
The Future of Food: Inside The World's Largest Urban Farm – Built on a Rooftop
On top of a striking new exhibition hall in the southern 15th arrondissement of Paris, the world’s largest urban rooftop farm has started to bear fruit. Strawberries, to be precise: small, intensely flavoured and resplendently red
In Paris, urban farmers are trying a soil-free approach to agriculture that uses less space and fewer resources. Could it help cities face the threats to our food supplies?
Urban farming on a Parisian rooftop. Photograph: Stéphane de Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images
08 Jul 2020
On top of a striking new exhibition hall in the southern 15th arrondissement of Paris, the world’s largest urban rooftop farm has started to bear fruit. Strawberries, to be precise: small, intensely flavoured and resplendently red.
They sprout abundantly from cream-coloured plastic columns. Pluck one out to peer inside and you see the columns are completely hollow, the roots of dozens of strawberry plants dangling into thin air.
From identical vertical columns nearby burst row upon row of lettuces; near those are aromatic basil, sage, and peppermint. Opposite, in narrow, horizontal trays packed not with soil but coco coir (coconut fibre), grow heirloom and cherry tomatoes, shiny aubergines, and brightly coloured chards.
“It is,” says Pascal Hardy, surveying his domain, “a clean, productive and sustainable model of agriculture that can in time make a real contribution to the resilience – social, economic and also environmental – of the kind of big cities where most of humanity now lives.
And look: it really works.”Hardy, an engineer, and sustainable development consultant, began experimenting with vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers – as those soil-free plastic columns are known – on his Paris apartment block roof five years ago.
This space is somewhat bigger: 14,000 sq metres, the size (almost exactly) of two football pitches. Coronavirus delayed its opening by a couple of months, but Nature Urbaine, as the operation is called, is now up and running, and has planted roughly a third of the available space.
Already, the team of young urban farmers who tend it have picked, in one day, 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries. When the remaining two-thirds of the vast rooftop of Paris Expo’s Pavillon 6 are in production, 20 staff will harvest up to 1,000kg of perhaps 35 different varieties of fruit and vegetables, every day.“
We’re not ever, obviously, going to feed the whole city this way,” cautions Hardy. “In the urban environment you’re working with very significant practical constraints, clearly, on what you can do and where. But if enough unused space – rooftops, walls, small patches of land – can be developed like this, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t eventually target maybe between 5% and 10% of consumption.”
Nature Urbaine is already supplying local residents, who can order fruit and veg boxes online; a clutch of nearby hotels; a private catering firm that operates 30 company canteens in and around Paris; and an airy bar and restaurant, Le Perchoir, which occupies one extremity of the Pavillon 6 rooftop.
Nature Urbaine. Photograph: Magali Delporte/The Guardian
Perhaps most significantly, however, this is a real-life showcase for the work of Hardy’s flourishing urban agriculture consultancy, Agripolis, which is currently fielding inquiries from around the world – including in the UK, the US, and Germany – to design, build and equip a new breed of soil-free inner-city farm.“The method’s advantages are many,” he says. “First, I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the fact that most of the fruit and vegetables we eat have been treated with something like 17 different pesticides, or that the intensive farming techniques that produced them are such huge generators of greenhouse gases.“I don’t much like the fact, either, that they’ve travelled an average of 2,000 refrigerated kilometres to my plate, that their quality is so poor, because the varieties are selected for their capacity to withstand that journey, or that 80% of the price I pay goes to wholesalers and transport companies, not the producers.”
Produce grown using this soil-free method, on the other hand – which relies solely on a small quantity of water, enriched with organic nutrients, minerals and bacteria, pumped around a closed circuit of pipes, towers and trays – is “produced up here, and sold locally, just down there. It barely travels at all,” Hardy says.“It uses less space. An ordinary intensive farm can grow nine salads per square metre of soil; I can grow 50 in a single tower. You can select crop varieties for their flavour, not their resistance to the transport and storage chain, and you can pick them when they’re really at their best, and not before.”
No pesticides or fungicides are needed, no soil is exhausted, and the water that gently showers the plants’ roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90% less water than a classic intensive farm for the same yield. The whole automated process can be monitored and controlled, on site or remotely, with a tablet computer.
Urban farming is not, of course, a new phenomenon. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, aims eventually to have at least 100 hectares of rooftops, walls and facades covered with greenery – including 30 hectares producing fruit and vegetables.
A programme called Les Parisculteurs invites local groups to come up with suitable projects for up to a dozen new sites every year.Inner-city agriculture is booming from Shanghai to Detroit and Tokyo to Bangkok. Strawberries are being grown in disused shipping containers; mushrooms in underground carparks. Not all techniques, however, are environmentally friendly: ultra-intensive, 10-storey indoor farms that have sprung up in the US rely on banks of LED lighting and are major consumers of energy, Hardy says.
Aeroponic farming, he says, is “virtuous”. The equipment weighs little, can be installed on almost any flat surface, and is cheap to buy: roughly €100 to €150 per sq metre. It is cheap to run, too, consuming a tiny fraction of the electricity used by some techniques.
Aeroponic farming is ‘virtuous’, says Pascal Hardy. Photograph: Magali Delporte/The Guardian
Produce grown this way typically sells at prices that, while generally higher than those of classic intensive agriculture, are lower than soil-based organic growers. In Paris, Nature Urbaine should break even, Hardy estimates, some time next year – a few months later than planned because of the pandemic
.There are limits to what farmers can grow this way, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. “Root vegetables we cannot do, at least not yet,” he says. “Radishes are OK, but carrots, potatoes, that kind of thing – the roots are simply too long. Fruit trees are obviously not an option. And beans tend to take up a lot of space for not much return.”
But Agripolis runs a smaller test farm, on top of a gym and swimming pool complex in the 11th arrondissement, where it experiments with new varieties and trials new techniques. A couple of promising varieties of raspberries are soon to make the transition to commercial production.
Urban agriculture is not the only development changing the face of farming. As with almost every other sector of the economy, digitisation and new technologies are transforming the way we grow food.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things are beginning to revolutionise farming, from driverless, fully automated farm machinery that can sow seeds and fertilise and water soil with maximum precision to systems that monitor exactly how healthy individual animals are and how much they are producing (a concept known as the “connected cow”).
Other AI systems analyse satellite and remote ground sensor data, for example, to monitor plant health, soil condition, temperature and humidity and even to spot potential crop diseases.
Drones, too, have multiple potential uses on farms. With the world’s bee population in steep decline due to global heating, pesticides, and other factors, drones are increasingly being used to pollinate crops fields and fruit orchards. To avoid wasting pollen by wafting it randomly at crops, or the damage to individual flowers caused by drones rubbing against them, scientists in Japan have developed a system in which a drone uses what can only be described as a bubble gun to blow balls of specially formulated liquid containing pollen at individual blossoms.
With global food production estimated to need to increase by as much as 70% over the coming decades, many scientists believe genetic editing, which has already been used to create crops that produce higher yields or need less water to grow, will also have to play a bigger role.
The technique could help build plant and animal resistance to disease, and reduce waste. For example, with methane known to be a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, research is under way into the stomach bacteria of cows in the hope that tweaking animals’ gut microbes may eventually allow them to produce not just more meat, but also less gas.
Seating at Le Perchoir. Photograph: Magali Delporte/The Guardian
Urban farming of the kind being practised in Paris is one part of a bigger and fast-changing picture. “Here, we’re really talking about about building resilience, on several levels – a word whose meaning I have come to understand personally,” says Hardy, pointing to the wheelchair he has been forced to use since being injured by a falling tree.
“That resilience can be economic: urban farming, hyper-local food production, can plainly provide a measure of relief in an economic crisis. But it is also environmental: boosting the amount of vegetation in our cities will help combat some of the effects of global heating, particularly urban ‘heat islands’.”
Done respectfully, and over time, inner-city agriculture can prompt us to think differently both about cities, by breaking down their traditional geography of different zones for working, living and playing, and about agriculture, by bringing food production closer into our lives. “It’s changing paradigms,” says Hardy.
VIDEO: Farm On A Paris Rooftop: Urban Farm Aims To Be Europe’s Largest
The first phase of a vast urban farming project in Paris is now underway following a two-month delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Set on a Paris rooftop, the farm is set to grow over the next two years to become the largest urban farm in Europe
22/06/2020
Text by: FRANCE | Video by: Sam BALL
The first phase of a vast urban farming project in Paris is now under way following a two-month delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Set on a Paris rooftop, the farm is set to grow over the next two years to become the largest urban farm in Europe.
The farm, on a rooftop of the Paris Exhibition Centre in the south-west of the city, currently covers an area of 4,000m², but those behind the project plan to expand the agricultural space to 14,000m² by 2022.
They hope to be able produce around 1,000kg of fruit and vegetables every day in high season thanks to a team of around 20 farmers while providing a global model for sustainable farming where produce is grown locally and according to the seasons. “The goal is to locally supply healthy, pesticide-free products to local businesses, company restaurants, and to farming associations in a nearby area, ” Agripolis president Pascal Hardy told AFP.
Along with commercial farming, locals are able to rent space on the rooftop to grow their own fruit and veg, while visitors can sample the produce at an on-site restaurant.
The farm is part of what appears to be a growing trend in the French capital to produce and consume food locally, with a number of urban farming projects springing up around the city in recent years, while Paris City Hall has committed to creating 30 hectares of urban farming space in the city in 2020.
“The real trend today is towards quality local products, more so than organic,” said Hardy. “We’re at the top of the organic wave, but we’re on the way down, and the challenge now is to be able to show how the products were generated and also to show that they don’t come from the other side of the planet, like beans from Kenya, for example, or from deep in Spain with farming practices that are not very virtuous.”
Jersey City May Have The U.S.'s First Municipal Vertical Farm. Experts Share How it Can Thrive
The city has signed a three-year contract with the Newark-based vertical farming company AeroFarms and plans to begin growing leafy greens in 10 locations including senior centers, schools, public housing complexes and municipal buildings later this year
Rebecca King | NorthJersey.com
June 26, 2020
Jersey City is on track to implement the country’s first municipal vertical farming program.
The city has signed a three-year contract with the Newark-based vertical farming company AeroFarms and plans to begin growing leafy greens in 10 locations including senior centers, schools, public housing complexes, and municipal buildings later this year.
“A lot of people don’t go for regular physicals,” said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. “They’re not checking their sugar levels, blood pressure or cholesterol. Having people be more diligent about their diet will hopefully increase their lifespan, long-term.”
Once the microgreens start sprouting, members of the community will be able to sign up to receive free produce. They’ll be encouraged to attend seminars about healthy eating and get regular health tests done through Quest Diagnostics, which has also partnered with the city.
Because crops are stacked at this AeroFarms facility, the company says it can produce 390 times the crops from a traditional farm.~Courtesy of AeroFarms
“It’s important to be doing this prior to people getting diseases or sicknesses,” said Fulop. “A lot of what we’re doing is based on education. Many people aren’t aware of the bad foods they’re putting in their bodies on a regular basis.”
Vertical farming is one method of hydroponic controlled environment agriculture. Instead of being grown outside in soil, plants in vertical farms are stacked on shelves inside, misted with nutrients and lit with LED lights in lieu of sunlight.
Garrett Broad, an assistant professor at Fordham University whose research focuses on new food technology, food justice, and community-based organizing, says vertical farming has many sustainability boons.
Because the environment is completely controlled, the weather cannot destroy or affect crops. Vertical farming saves water. It reduces runoff. There’s no need for pesticides. And any kind of crop can be grown year-round. Fulop predicts Jersey City’s program will produce 19,000 pounds of food annually.
“The idea is that by doing vertical stacking, you can get a lot of productivity out of a very small area,” Broad said.
Farmers tend plants at AeroFarms with the help of platforms that can rise and fall.~Courtesy of AeroFarms
But, there are downsides. Vertical farming is extremely energy-intensive. Even energy-saving LED lights require a huge amount of power to shine on the crops. According to Fulop, Jersey City has no way to offset the impact of this energy use yet. Many of the farms are housed in decades-old buildings that have not been updated to include solar panels or other energy-saving technologies.
“It’s something we need to consider in the future,” said Fulop.
The other issue with vertical farming is that leafy greens are essentially the only plants worth growing, said Broad. Larger, heavier fruits and vegetables have too much biomass and require too much artificial light and nutrients to grow in a cost-effective way.
Indeed, Fulop confirmed that greens are the “easiest base material” to grow and will be the focus of Jersey City’s vertical farms.
That said, vertical farms do have the ability to create change in a community when done right, said Broad.
“Vertical gardens are similar to other urban farming projects we see,” he said. “They exist on a sort of spectrum. Some are total failures, some are a fun project and some are actually part of a social change.”
Projects that don’t receive enough funding or attention rank as “total failures.” Small community gardens rank in the “fun project” category -- “They provide small scale change. People get to know their food a bit more, they learn some horticultural skills, but it doesn’t drastically change the community,” said Broad.
According to Broad, Jersey City will have to do extensive community outreach to make vertical farming a long-term success – which means reaching out to faith leaders, schools and groups that are trusted by the community and getting them involved with the distribution of produce.
It means talking to residents about what vegetables they actually eat; planning cooking classes at times when people aren’t working; making dishes at those classes that the attendees will actually cook in their own homes.
As technology continues to improve, the company expects vertical farming to become even more cost-effective. | Courtesy of AeroFarms
“Did we ask to see if the people who are actually the target of this project have working kitchens? Are we making sure they have pots and pans? Are we growing food that’s culturally relevant to them? If we don’t ask these questions, a lot of times vertical farming projects stay in the ‘nice and fun’ category,” Broad said.
Jersey City has launched a few food initiatives in past years. The city gave grants to bodegas and corner stores to redesign display cases, putting fruits and vegetables next to their counters instead of snacks and candy to encourage healthy eating. Another program involved walking senior citizens around a supermarket and teaching them to read the labels on the back of packaged foods. At the end of the tour, they were given money and encouraged to purchase healthy meals.
Areas in which there is an extreme lack of nutritious, affordable food have been called “food deserts.” But, those who study farming technology have been moving away from that term, which brings up images of scarcity and used-up land. Instead, “food swamp” is now used to describe cities and towns that have food available, but few healthy options. Others use the term “food apartheid” to draw attention to food inequality. Poorer neighborhoods are usually the places that lack fresh, affordable food.
Jersey City is one such place, said Broad. If given the right attention, he added, a vertical farming initiative could be a step toward addressing poverty and food inequality.
“This is the kind of thing that can be fun and flashy and get media attention,” he said. “But, it’s up to us to apply pressure to the government and say, ‘OK, show us how this is part of something bigger.’”
Rebecca King is a food writer for NorthJersey.com. For more on where to dine and drink, please subscribe today and sign up for our North Jersey Eats newsletter.
Email: kingr@northjersey.com Twitter: @rebeccakingnj Instagram: @northjerseyeats
June 26, 2020
Indoor Vertical Farming is The Future Says Irish Agritech Start-Up
Farmony says Ireland can become self-sufficient in leafy greens, herbs and microgreens thanks to its approach to vertical farming
Farmony Says Ireland Can Become Self-Sufficient in Leafy Greens, Herbs, and Microgreens Thanks to its Approach to Vertical Farming
Jun 25, 2020
Olive Keogh
Farmony co-founders Rodrigo Andrade, Dan O’Brien, and John Paul Prior
Animals grazing peacefully in the fields and serried rows of crops stretching far into the distance are what usually come to mind when we think about farming. It’s a pastoral image deeply embedded by tradition and worlds away from how they do things at the agritech start-up Farmony, which builds high output, controlled environment vertical farms to produce leafy greens and herbs.
On a Farmony farm, the crops are grown indoors on multiple layers of tiered shelving. The method is ideally suited to growing salad leaves and microgreens and a unit can produce in 55sq m (592sq ft) what would normally occupy five acres if conventionally farmed. It also only uses about 5 percent of the water required by traditional growing methods and a unit can be operational 365 days a year.“Vertical farming is not new. In fact, it’s been around forever. Just look at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or rock faces or the seashore with plants growing, irrigated and fed by water,” says Farmony co-founder John Paul Prior.
So, in the strictest sense, vertical farming isn’t new but its commercialization is. The first large-scale commercial application only came on stream in Singapore in 2012 and Farmony is joining this nascent industry at a time when it is increasingly seen as part of the answer to sustainably and economically feeding the world’s growing population.
What makes Farmony’s approach innovative is twofold. Firstly, it has designed its system to support multiple crops requiring different growing conditions. Secondly, it has put everything a grower needs together in one turnkey package. “In a nutshell, we build customized, controlled environment vertical farms and use our own hardware and software operating system to improve growing efficiencies,” says Prior, who set up Farmony with co-founders Daniel O’Brien and Rodrigo Andrade in November 2018.
The idea for Farmony was O’Brien’s and he spent about 18 months developing the concept before bringing Prior (a friend from college with a marketing background) and business graduate Andrade (a former colleague at the Kerry group) on board. O’Brien’s background is in agriculture and economics and he had seen the start of commercial vertical farms in Asia and the Far East while working abroad.
The Farmony growing units are modular and can be built to any size
Modular units
Potential customers for Farmony include existing and would-be farmers, schools, colleges, community enterprises, and even individuals with €1,500 to spare who can produce a steady supply of fresh greens from a mini-unit in their own home. Anywhere there’s free space is a potential site and controlled farming environments have been created around the world in many unusual places: from tunnels and disused air raid shelters to vacant car parks.
The growing units are modular so farms can be built to any size. A fully kitted out facility, roughly the size of two 40ft (12m) containers joined together, would cost in the region of €86,000. “We land the farm in someone’s yard or put it together in an available outbuilding – such as an unused mushroom house – hook it up to the [existing] power and water supply and they are ready to start growing,” Prior says.“Growers have no problems with weather or seasonality and don’t have to worry about levels of watering or plant nutrition as this is all controlled for them. With our system it’s not the growing that’s the issue. It’s the selling. They need to have thought out their route to market for the volume they’re planning to produce because if they go for microgreens they’d have crops ready for harvesting every 7-10 days. But if they went for something like basil it’s between 21 and 25 days to harvest so it’s less labor-intensive.”With their shiny growing trays, distinctive LED lighting, and humans dressed in white coats with gloves and hair coverings, a Farmony unit looks more like a plant factory than a farm. However, high levels of hygiene mean the growing environment can be kept pesticide-free. It’s all very quiet and even a little bit eerie as the low labor requirement means people are thin on the ground. Making everything as automated as possible was a priority for the company so the labor input for a 20-module unit would be 25-30 hours a week between seeding, transplanting, harvesting, and cleaning.
Farm dashboard
While the uniform rows of little green plants are the visible manifestation of the Farmony method, they are just one side of the story. The other is the intelligent monitoring system that’s whirring away in the background and measuring all the key metrics, providing minute-by-minute detail about the crops as they grow so environmental tweaks can be made as needed.
Each grower has an individual farm dashboard that gives them updates on their crops and offers advice on things like workflow planning. The dashboard can also be used to reorder raw materials such as seeds and growing mats.
Farmony’s units can be remotely controlled from anywhere in the world from any network. This is different to most smart technology farm systems that require the user to be closer to home. The company’s platform is open source and can be used over GSM phone networks and any wifi or internet connection. Customers can choose to operate alone with just back-up support from Farmony or they can become part of the interconnected Farmony “family”, which among other things uses aggregated data from growers to help them further improve growing efficiencies and gain insights into crop behavior.“
In Ireland alone we import around €300 million in fresh produce that we could be growing here given the right conditions,” Prior says. “With our solution this produce could be grown locally all year round, creating jobs and reducing food miles. There is no reason why Ireland can’t become self-sufficient in leafy greens, herbs and microgreens.”Investment in the business has been about €250,000 so far with support coming from the Department of Agriculture, Fingal Local Enterprise Office, and Teagasc. e
Farmony will make its money from selling hardware and from monthly SaaS subscriptions based on farm size with over-the-air updates and tiered reporting levels available.
In May, Farmony signed a European distribution agreement with the US-based Sananbio, a vertical farming technology company that makes growing modules and horticultural lighting. The plan is for Farmony to start selling its solution across Europe using Sananbio’s equipment and it has already opened a satellite office in Poland to kick-start the process. The company expects to have about five farms up in running in Ireland by the end of the year and already has one in the US with another to follow and one about to come on stream in the UK.
What Will The Urban Greenhouse of The Future Look Like?
The market for fresh produce in China is looking very interesting. With a growing middle class, and safely produced, healthy food being high on the agenda in light of the current pandemic, all the ingredients are there for growth
The market for fresh produce in China is looking very interesting. With a growing middle class, and safely produced, healthy food being high on the agenda in light of the current pandemic, all the ingredients are there for growth. So it's no surprise that China was chosen as the location for the second Urban Greenhouse Challenge (UGC). Twenty student teams went head to head, planning concepts, combining agriculture and architecture to create some very interesting projects. Yesterday, the ten teams that would go to the final were announced in a webinar, which also offered a glimpse at what the future of urban farming might look like.
Team USP wants to involve city dwellers in the process of growing food through innovations such as cryptocurrency CoraCoin and application CoraApp.
Northwest A&F University Team designed an immersive ‘future agriculture’ complex that provides a new and replicable solution for urban agriculture, developed in pursuit of a more harmonious mode of coexistence between people and nature in the post-COVID-19 world.
First up to provide their opinion on this were selection committee members Tiffany Tsui, independent consultant, and René Gommersbach of Rabobank. Highlighting the aspects that make the Chinese market particularly interesting, as she had already done in an earlier UGC event, Tiffany called the food industry one of the most interesting fields for investment in the coming years, with Chinese consumers looking for safe, environmentally friendly food. "It will be the next big area for investment," she noted, pointing to the changing supply chain in China, where consumers are more and more buying their food through e-commerce rather than at the traditional wet markets.
The KAS Greenhouse combines high-quality food production, waste reduction and social engagement in form of education- and employment opportunities for urban migrants and farmers.
The Turtle from TeAMSpirit combines Chinese tradition with innovative urban solutions. Powered by a green power plant, it is a food center, business hub, research institute and meeting place all in one.
"Having a social heart is not enough"
Investing in the emerging urban food sector, which has circularity and sustainability high on the agenda, may require having a 'social heart', as presenter Jan Meijroos put it, but that's not enough, René points out. "You have to earn your money, having a social heart is not enough. In the first two, three, four years, you will lose money, but after that you must get your spin-off."
Argos offers an embodiment of sustainable architecture and circular solutions in food production, where people come in contact with vertical farming and sustainable living.
CoExist's project Shennong’s Farmers is an Experiential Knowledge Hub and Excellence Center linking people, products, and local traditions through an innovative hands-on learning experience open to all.
Scaling up circularity
Speaking of circularity, that's what selection committee members Wenqing Jin (Wageningen Plant Research) and Chris Monaghan (Metabolic) paid special attention to. "Circularity requires a certain amount of water or resources," Wenqing said, noting that scale is actually the biggest challenge in becoming circular. Chris added that the teams in the challenge weren't quite fully circular yet in terms of their concepts, but they had "come a long way", with teams focusing on different ways to achieve that. Chris particularly pointed out the need to reuse nutrients from the wastewater system to feed crops in a modern urban and regional food production system.
The Bagua is a food and educational hub, a stacked semi-closed greenhouse that integrates the latest technologies to grow healthy food within planetary boundaries. Inspired by Taoism, flows of resources and synergies between production and consumption help restore the balance between humanity and nature.
Water more valuable than energy
"Circularity is more about the flow of how resources are reused, rather than focusing on the technology", Chris noted. One of those resources that plays a major role in vertical farming right now is energy. However, according to Wenqing, this will change soon enough. "In the future, we will have plenty of electrical energy. At the moment energy is a bottleneck in vertical farming, but I believe that one day, clear water will be more valuable than electricity, so that should become a priority."
AIGreen's HerbTopia revives Lingnan style architecture to create an entertaining, educational, and collaborative environment, with innovative technical solutions around herb production.
Not just tomato towers
Chris then expanded on his thoughts about seeing circularity as a whole system. "Cities will not be resilient for food just by building towers with lettuce or tomato production", he said. "The COVID crisis has emphasized the need for a resilient approach: it's not just about high-tech agriculture."
Green Rhapsody's The Cube is an agro-food complex that serves as the city's living room and as a prototype for future sustainable solutions, including an agricultural theme park and psychotherapy based on gardening activities.
Inside the mind of a generation
Finally, Sigrid Wertheim-Heck (Aeres University of Applied Science Almere) and Stephan Petermann (MANN) shone their light on the challenge. Sigrid pointed at the blurring that's happening between the rural and urban areas, with cities moving into the rural area and vice versa. As a result, there's a balancing act going on between indoor and outdoor production. Commenting on the entries, she calls the challenge "a unique peek inside the mind of a generation", praising the optimism of the teams. "Not everyone is embracing food, circularity and sustainability right now," but the young team members are a breath of fresh air in this respect.
InnerCity designed an innovation hub inside of a modular building that adapts to its surroundings and provides more energy than it consumes. Crop production is determined by data collected directly from the customers.
Ten finalists
Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for: the announcement of the 10 teams that would move on to the finals of the challenge. Rio Pals and Marta Eggers, the organizers of the challenge, discussed how they managed to keep things interesting while it wasn't possible to meet live due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Then Tiffany Tsui took the floor again to address the teams and announce the finalists.
Pictures of the ten winning concepts are sprinkled throughout this article, and you can click through this list to learn more about them:
In the final phase of the competition, the teams will get intensive pitch training. They'll have to present their ideas in a social media pitch, a video pitch, and a longer, written pitch. "Now the real work starts", as Marta put it.
For more information:
WUR Urban Greenhouse Challenge
studentchallenges@wur.nl
urbangreenhousechallenge.nl
Publication date: Tue 23 Jun 2020
Author: Jan Jacob Mekes
© HortiDaily.com
Pricey Greens From Indoor Farms Are Thriving In The Covid Era
By Saturday, March 14, even before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the shutdown of all in-restaurant dining in New York City the next night, Viraj Puri, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based indoor urban farming company Gotham Greens
Deena Shanker Bookmark
Published: June 19, 2020, 4:30 PM
Updated: June 20, 2020, 6:35 PM
(Bloomberg Businessweek)
By Saturday, March 14, even before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the shutdown of all in-restaurant dining in New York City the next night, Viraj Puri, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based indoor urban farming company Gotham Greens
Read more at https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/novel-farming-sees-massive-jump-in-demand-amid-coronavirus
Copyright © BloombergQuint
From Macau's Casinos To a Kallang Farm: The Gaming Industry Professional Who Now Grows Baby Spinach
His indoor hydroponics farm, Artisan Green, specializes in growing baby spinach. The 3,200 sq ft farm is located in Kallang in central Singapore, with its entire set-up costing Mr. Poh slightly under a million-dollar
Mr Ray Poh founded Artisan Green in 2018. (Photo: Artisan Green)
23 May 2020
SINGAPORE: For five years, Mr. Ray Poh mingled with high rollers in Macau, which has been dubbed the gambling capital of the world.
It was a lucrative career filled with opportunities to travel frequently. But in 2015, Mr. Poh gave all of that up.
“I did think about making it a career,” said Mr. Poh, who had studied in Australia since the age of 12. “But I think at the end of the five years, I realized that I’d been away for most of my life from my mum, who was back in Singapore. That was one of the main factors (that led me to leave).”
It took him a year to completely leave the industry, but by 2016, Mr. Poh had decided on a very different career path: Urban farming.
His indoor hydroponics farm, Artisan Green, specializes in growing baby spinach. The 3,200 sq ft farm is located in Kallang in central Singapore, with its entire set-up costing Mr. Poh slightly under a million dollars.
Although Artisan Green was founded in 2018, a year before Singapore announced its ’30 by 30’ goal to produce 30 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs locally by 2030, it is part of an increasing wave of indoor farms looking to use sustainable methods to grow to produce locally.
In April, the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources announced a S$30 million 30x30 Express grant for the agri-food industry to speed up the production of commonly consumed food items like eggs, vegetables, and fish.
READ: COVID-19 pandemic highlights importance of strengthening Singapore's food security, say experts
READ: Interest in urban farming sprouts amid COVID-19 outbreak
A FAMILY BUSINESS
While casino gaming was never something he had been interested in, a chat with his mother post-graduation was enough to convince Mr. Poh to enter the family business.
“I was thinking of entering the banking industry, but the thought of being behind a desk didn’t appeal to me much. So we were having a discussion and she said, why don’t you give this a try. Your father needs some help in the company, perhaps you can go out and see what you can do,” he said.
Initially, he did business development with his father’s manufacturing company, developing products such as slot machines. As he became more involved in product design, so his interest in the industry grew, he said.
The exterior of Artisan Green. (Photo: Artisan Green)
After a year, his boss convinced him that he ought to head to Macau to advance his understanding of the industry, which turned out to be a fruitful experience.
“I think at the very start when I first went there, I didn’t know anything or anyone in Macau, so the main thing I did was to network around. I met a lot of good people, and at the same time, obviously, you meet people that are not so good.
“What I did was learn what to do and what not to do. It was a very good experience,” he said.
Being new to the industry also meant that people did not take him seriously. Mr. Poh had to work hard to brush up his knowledge on the casino gaming industry by doing research, reading industry magazines, and making friends who could teach him – skills which would later put him in good stead to enter a completely different industry.
CONTRIBUTING TO SUSTAINABILITY
When he told his family that he wanted to move out of casino gaming, they were supportive of his decision, said Mr. Poh.
“I think from the business aspect of things, it was more of a diversification. I’ve always thought that agriculture is something that’s evergreen. People will always need to eat. Whereas casino gaming is something like the entertainment sector,” he said, adding that he wanted to “do something more to contribute to the sustainability segment”.
“At first I thought about doing landscaping, but I didn’t really want to go back to study more. So I thought farming might be an easy way in.
“But I was very wrong about how easy it was. After doing the research, I quite naively thought that I would do this for about a year and network around, meet more people, and then move into landscaping. But it just took me down towards farming all the way,” he said.
Artisan Green has 120 growing racks, with six layers in each rack. (Photo: Artisan Green)
Just like when he started out in Macau, Mr. Poh had “zero knowledge” of the agriculture sector, and people also did not take him seriously when he started.
“I knew I had to build up my knowledge from ground-up again,” he said.
He attended courses and conferences, forged relationships with people in the industry, watched Youtube videos, and built prototypes.
Building the prototypes gave him the confidence to decide that he wanted to build his entire farm from scratch. After leasing space from Mapletree and procuring all his supplies and tools, Mr. Poh set himself to work as the main contractor of his own farm.
Save for the electrical wiring and the plumbing, Mr. Poh put the entire 3,200 sq ft farm together with his own hands over the course of three months.
“When I was building the farm, I was there from 9 am to 10 pm. I’d only eat one meal a day during the building because I didn’t want to waste time. So I would only eat one really huge brunch and then just work the entire day in the farm,” he said.
It was challenging work, as he did all the sawing, drilling, and lifting and even suffered a back injury from hunching over and moving around too much. While he admitted that he should have gotten a partner to build the farm with him in hindsight, Mr. Poh said that the process was necessary.
“Now that I’ve gone through this, I can safely say that I know pretty much everything in the farm. I’ve sourced for every single piece of equipment by myself which makes it even easier for me to understand other people’s systems.
“I can look at other people’s systems, I can derive how it’s built, how it’s done, and that experience isn’t something you can get from reading books or watching tutorials online,” he said.
WHAT KEEPS HIM GOING
Even with his extensive research, his lack of science and engineering knowledge posed challenges for him.
“I didn’t really do chemistry, so that was kind of hard to pick up, and I knew that I needed to get the foundational knowledge of farming in terms of the science aspect to be able to do well in it,” he said, as science was an integral part of farming.
He also had to engage professional engineers to help him ensure the farm was built well.
This was in addition to the time he had to sacrifice in those early months, when he was just starting out, with many weekends spent at the farm just to make sure that everything was running well.
And even with the farm up and running, the team also ran into other problems, such as nutrient deficiency issues for their spinach.
Artisan Green's team packing spinaches. (Photo: Artisan Green)
But what kept Mr. Poh going was his desire to “see the final product”.
“And we’re quite proud of what we’ve done with this current farm. We’ve had people from the industry – from the US, Europe – coming to visit us and they were quite impressed with the farm we’ve built. They told that it was comparable to some of the more advanced overseas farms as well.
“Hearing that gives us the motivation and a stronger belief in what we do.”
FUTURE PLANS
In the short-term, Artisan Green hopes to scale up its production from its current 30kg to 250kg of vegetables per week.
Although Malaysia’s Movement Control Order has temporarily disrupted the farm’s supply of equipment which they require to scale up, Mr. Poh is hoping to at least double the farm’s output by the end of the “circuit breaker” period and to hit 100kg per week by the end of the quarter.
In the longer-term, Mr. Poh is also looking to build his second farm – this time bigger, and with a wider variety of crops. But rather than growing specialty crops, Mr. Poh said he now wants to start growing crops such as Chinese cabbage, which he says there is a bigger demand for in Singapore.
“The next farm will have to be more automated, from end-to-end. That’s what our future goal is: to build the second farm and also to grow different crops, not just baby spinach, and work towards something where we can fulfill the whole ’30 by 30’ vision by the Government,” he said.
Source: CNA/cc
Tagged Topics
Scaling Up Urban Farming Beyond COVID-19
More urban dwellers who usually rely on food that is sourced from farms away from the city are turning to urban farming now that COVID-19 has fractured and exposed how fragile the existing food supply chains are
by Esther Ngumbi | University of Illinois
9 June 2020
*Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The world has seen an increase in urban farming amid the coronavirus and fragile food supply chains
Esther Ngumbi, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology and African American Studies Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute New Voices
More urban dwellers who usually rely on food that is sourced from farms away from the city are turning to urban farming now that COVID-19 has fractured and exposed how fragile the existing food supply chains are. Google trends reports show that searches for “gardens” are up and enterprises that sell plants and seeds report a spike in the number of customers. Across America, people are planting more vegetables.
Around the world, other countries have seen a sharp increase in urban farming, from Jakarta, to Singapore to Australia. This is a move in the right direction and the reinvigorating of the urban farming movement should be supported and nurtured.
What does urban farming look like? According to the United States Department of Agriculture and Food and Agriculture Organization, urban agriculture can take many forms, from roof-top gardens to farming on abandoned buildings and parking lots to backyard and balcony gardening. In many African countries, it often entails sack and stack farming and traditional gardening in backyards, and in some places like South Africa, it also includes rooftop gardens and small farm gardens.
There are many benefits to urban farming including condensing the mileage of food from the farm to the market to improving personal health, ecosystems, and food insecurity while promoting sustainable livelihoods. Most importantly, during the pandemic, urban farming has helped families to cope with food insecurities.
The urban farming movement is especially welcome in Africa, a continent that is rapidly urbanizing, with cities that are crowded and costly. At 3.5 percent per year, Africa’s urban growth rate is the highest in the world, and that number is expected to keep increasing. Supporting urban farming across Africa would allow the continent to be ready for any future pandemics. Moreover, at the moment, urban cities in Africa rely on rural areas to meet their food demands, because most of the food consumed is bought in markets and from vendors who source their food directly from farmers that are based in rural areas.
How do we then tap into the renewed attention to urban farming by city dwellers?
Well, to develop effective support systems while further nurturing urban agriculture, there is the need to first and foremost accurately capture and map the current state of things. How many new community and city gardens and farms have been planted? Who is doing it? What challenges have they faced? What kind of food are they growing? How did they finance their venture? Who are they distributing the products to? How big is the space and land they are using?
Creating databases and dashboard maps of this information is vital to growing the urban farming movement. This can be done by sending surveys by organizations that are already practicing urban farming, city governments or educational institutions that are based near urban cities. Creating these inventories would also serve to inform urban city planners and policy makers and governments while connecting urban farmers with each other, to potential funders and to consumers.
Second, farming and agriculture is knowledge-intensive. Consequently, there is a need to establish support systems for these farmers. Urban dwellers need current knowledge about recent growing methods, innovative business models, and other best practices to ensure they make the most out of their urban farming enterprise. The good thing is that there are ample resources such as on the sites of USDA, and UN FAO.
Moreover, as urban farming grows, a community and network of support would be key. Urban farmers living in the same cities and regions can form partnerships to support each other.
As we nurture the movement, we must also encourage many more urban dwellers who have not yet ventured into urban farming to give it a try. From university webpages to private organizations to associations YouTube videos including guiding African cities urban dwellers on how to successfully create a bag garden.
Food supplies disruptions due to another pandemic or other causes are likely to happen. This new appreciation for urban farming fostered during COVID-19 lockdowns should keep growing. We must continue to tap onto urban agriculture to grow fresh, healthy, and nutritious food for urban city dwellers.
THEMES CLIMATE (AIR POLLUTION, GREEN TRANSPORT, ZERO CARBON INITIATIVES ETC)
The New Wave Of Urban Farms Sprouting Strong Community Connections
If there’s one thing the global pandemic has taught us, it’s the importance of being as self-sufficient as possible, especially when it comes to putting food on the table
By Greg Callaghan | The Sydney Morning Herald | June 5, 2020
If there’s one thing the global pandemic has taught us, it’s the importance of being as self-sufficient as possible, especially when it comes to putting food on the table.
While community gardens and urban farms have been sprouting up across our cities in recent years, driven by an increasing demand for fresh, locally sourced vegetables and fruits, the coronavirus lockdown really struck a nerve about grow-your-own, according to operators of nurseries, community gardens and commercial urban farms in Sydney and Melbourne.
Tending the veggie garden at Camperdowns Commons, Sydney. Louise Kennerley
Emma Bowen, co-founder of Pocket City Farms in inner Sydney, which is part of Camperdown Commons, a former lawn bowls club turned urban farm and restaurant, says growing food forges a stronger sense of community.
“We’ve seen a really huge shift in mindset towards urban farms in the eight years we’ve been working here,” she notes. “We have many more developers and local councils reaching out about incorporating both urban farms and community gardens into new developments.”
While Camperdown Commons’ on-site restaurant and workshops have been put on hold since the lockdown, produce from the farm has been selling out every week, says Bowen. “Growing food where we live and building resilient communities are more important than ever.”
Before the pandemic, Farmwall, an agrifood-tech start-up in Melbourne, was predominantly selling its vertical aquaponic farming kits to businesses in office buildings. Now the company’s market has shifted to apartment blocks, enabling those without backyards or even balconies to grow microgreens, herbs and leafy greens.
“We show people how to grow food indoors, in limited spaces, in a naturally contained eco-system,” says Geert Hendrix, founder of Farmwall.
Adds Serena Lee, the firm’s non-executive director, “We may never go back to the corporate environment.”
But the urban farming phenomenon isn’t restricted to inner-city hipsters. Five percent of Australia’s biggest urban park, the Western Sydney Parklands, which covers more than 50 square kilometres, has been set aside for urban farming. In the heart of Parklands, 16 existing urban farms supply fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers to surrounding areas.
“Our urban farmers have experienced an upswing in customers at their roadside stalls, with the community choosing to shop locally and away from the traditional supermarkets,” says Parklands executive director Suellen Fitzgerald. “It reduces transport costs and allows children to see where their food comes from.”
To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.
Urban Agriculture Grants Awarded to Promote Food Growth in Disadvantaged Communities
Eleven Southeast Michigan urban farming groups received $75,000 in funding from the Mahindra Automotive North America Urban Agriculture Grant Program this week.
by Mid-Michigan Now Newsroom
June 9th, 2020
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., - – Eleven Southeast Michigan urban farming groups received $75,000 in funding from the Mahindra Automotive North America Urban Agriculture Grant Program this week.
The grants address COVID-19’s impact on locally available food supplies in inner-city areas.“We felt that concentrating our 2020 grant funds on strengthening the urban agriculture community’s ability to grow and distribute food to people in need was one of the ways we could be of the most help during the pandemic,” said Rick Haas, Mahindra Automotive North America’s President, and CEO.“
Now more than ever, we need to support Michigan’s urban farmers who are growing healthy food for their communities,” said U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow. “I applaud the commitment of Mahindra Automotive North America and all businesses and organizations who are strengthening urban farms in our state.”
I am confident,” Haas said, “that this year’s grant recipients will rise to—and meet—this new challenge and help improve the quality of life for hundreds, if not thousands, of people throughout this region. Mahindra Automotive North America is grateful and humbled to be able to support their heroic efforts.”
The eleven (11) groups receiving 2020 Mahindra Urban Agriculture Grants are:
Asbury Community Development Corporation (Flint) - $10,000
Burnside Farm (Detroit) - $2,000
Charles Drew Transition Center Horticultural Program (Detroit) - $10,000
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network-D-Town Farm (Detroit) - $15,000
Edible Flint (Flint) - $5,000
Greening of Detroit (Detroit ) - $5,000
Keep Growing Detroit (Detroit) - $15,000
Micah 6 (Pontiac) - $5,000
Mt. Olivet Neighborhood Watch (Detroit) - $2,000
Northend Christian CDC (Detroit) - $5,000
Yorkshire Woods Community Association (Detroit) - $1,000
Lead Photo: Money - WEYI.jpg
Research For Workforce Development in Controlled Environment Ag: What Makes a Successful Indoor Farm Manager?
As indoor agriculture has grown, finding, training, and retaining a skilled workforce has emerged as an important challenge to the industry. A unique combination of plant production, tech troubleshooting, and innovation is needed among employees managing these operations
By urbanagnews
June 8, 2020
As indoor agriculture has grown, finding, training, and retaining a skilled workforce has emerged as an important challenge to the industry. A unique combination of plant production, tech troubleshooting, and innovation is needed among employees managing these operations.
What are the critical skill sets, and how can we create a larger pipeline of individuals trained in these skills so that they can contribute to CEA business success?
At Cornell University, a group led by Professor Anu Rangarajan (Director, Small Farms Program) seeks to provide answers as part of a National Science Foundation-funded research project on CEA Viability in Metro Areas.
Rangarajan’s team has conducted extensive research to date in order to understand the workforce needs of the hydroponics industry, including greenhouses and indoor vertical farms—and the research continues.
With the long-term goal of creating robust curricula for training CEA employees in mind, a team from Cornell University conducted many in-depth interviews with professional CEA growers in 2018 and 2019.
The team then organized a workshop, in consultation with The Ohio State and Agritecture Consulting, that invited a focus group of CEA operations managers to model in detail the diverse activities that they perform on the job.
The resulting chart is a detailed, peer-reviewed list of duties (responsibilities) and tasks (activities, skills) that describe the work of the expert Indoor Farm Operations Manager.
The chart is currently being reviewed by peer growers worldwide, who are asked to verify how important each skill is, and how frequently it is conducted.
Based on this input, the Indoor Farm Operations Manager chart will be used as a starting point for prioritizing future CEA training modules. After that, a deeper analysis of key individual skills will be conducted in order to translate the foundational research into a teachable vocational curriculum.
Right now, however, Rangarajan’s team is actively seeking more responses to the verification survey.
“We need your help,” she emphasizes, speaking to professional CEA growers. “We want to learn your priorities for a CEA curriculum that will enhance the skills of current or future employees.”
The survey takes approximately thirty minutes to complete and can be completely anonymously. CEA growers who complete the survey will also be provided with an Amazon gift card for $25 as a token of appreciation, although they must provide their names and email addresses in order to receive this gift.
To take the survey, register here. The Cornell team will send a survey link directly from Qualtrics.
As Rangarajan notes, “Grower input will help us prioritize the core education and training relevant to indoor agriculture,” helping provide the industry with the skilled workforce it will need to scale.
For more information about this study regarding the future of the CEA workforce, please contact project lead Anu Rangarajan (ar47@cornell.edu) or research associate Wythe Marschall (wmarschall@fas.harvard.edu).
ABU DHABI: US Educator Outlines Urban Farming Vision in ADIBF Virtual Session
American educator, urban farmer, and innovator Stephen Ritz revealed how his tower garden-growing technology is flourishing in the UAE during the latest Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADIBF, Virtual Session
ABU DHABI, 2nd June 2020 (WAM)
American educator, urban farmer, and innovator Stephen Ritz revealed how his tower garden-growing technology is flourishing in the UAE during the latest Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADIBF, Virtual Session.
The talk, titled ‘Changing the World with the Power of a Plant’, on Thursday covered Ritz’s rise to fame through his innovative teaching methods in some of the USA’s poorest communities, his ongoing projects in the UAE, and the numerous books he has published.
As the 30th edition of ADIBF has been postponed until next year, the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, has instead organized the virtual sessions for scheduled guests to present their talks online, so viewers can watch safely in their homes.
Ritz, who has become known as ‘America’s Favourite Teacher’, has spawned a green movement through the changes he brought to the school where he taught in the South Bronx, New York. Utilizing hydroponics and aquaponics, he began to grow plants in the classroom, which in turn encouraged his students to follow sustainable and healthy lifestyles.
He first came to the UAE in 2015 as one of the ten finalists in the Global Teacher Prize. While he didn’t win, he used his runner-up prize money to create the Green Bronx Machine, a curriculum for a green classroom, which is now being taught around the world.
His work caught the attention of Dr. Abdulla Al Karam, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director-General of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, KHDA, in Dubai, who invited Ritz back to the UAE. Soon Ritz was visiting schools, universities, and businesses here to explain his methods. He also began working alongside Sheikh Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, the Environmental Advisor to the Government of Ajman, who is also known as the ‘Green Sheikh’ for his environmental work. The pair are currently authoring a book called Bringing the Farm to the Desert to be released in 2021.
Ritz also works with Esol Education, the international network of private schools that operates many schools across the UAE, and has been appointed as its Director of Health, Wellness and Innovation. He is now based at Fairgreen International School in The Sustainable City, Dubai, hence he says he now thinks of the UAE as his "second home".
Ritz said he enjoys nothing more than meeting children, inspiring teachers, inspiring healthy living, and inspiring healthy learning for everyone across the UAE through his passion, purpose, and hope.
With the 30th edition of the ADIBF postponed until next year, the DCT Abu Dhabi has launched a series of live virtual broadcasts to showcase artists and authors and open up new creative conversations with readers.
The virtual sessions will run until Monday, 15th June 2020, and feature ten speakers from around the world, to discuss a wide variety of themes – from history and education to entertainment and science – designed to appeal a wide audience of different age groups and tastes.
Other ADIBF Virtual Sessions have featured the Swedish behavioral expert Thomas Erikson, military survival specialist John Hudson; Lemn Sissay, the award-winning British-Ethiopian poet; and Annabel Karmel, the children’s cookbook author.
WAM/Tariq alfaham/Nour Salman