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USA - ALABAMA: Yellow Hammer Farms Opening Birmingham-Based Hydroponic Farm, Market
The farm and market will operate using technology that will be able to provide fresh and affordable produce year-round. A typical farm may be limited to five or six harvests a year for some crops, but Yellow Hammer Farms can have 11 to 12 harvests a year within its climate-controlled environment
Yellow Hammer Farms is opening a new indoor farm near downtown Birmingham. YELLOW HAMMER FARMS
Birmingham will have a hydroponic farm and market starting this weekend.
Owners Frank and Jillian Fitts will open Yellow Hammer Farms on June 18 at 702 Third Ave. N.
The farm and market will operate using technology that will be able to provide fresh and affordable produce year-round. A typical farm may be limited to five or six harvests a year for some crops, but Yellow Hammer Farms can have 11 to 12 harvests a year within its climate-controlled environment.
“From the beginning, our mission has been to bring Birmingham high-quality, locally grown produce," Frank Fitts said. "With so many of Birmingham’s residents living in a food desert, it was vital that we find a location where we could provide everyone a convenient option for affordable, fresh produce. Working in the food and beverage industry, I also saw firsthand the need and desire of restaurants and consumers wanting to purchase local produce throughout the year. So much of the produce that comes to this area travels a long distance. We are hoping to change that.”
The venture began with the Fittses converting an empty warehouse in the Titusville community. The building now is retrofitted with an advanced vertical hydroponic growing system to create a highly efficient, controlled growing environment that uses no soil. Water loaded with nutrients recirculates throughout the system, feeding the plants, while LED lights and a climate control system are overhead.
Crops that will always be on hand include basil, lettuce mix, kale, and other leafy greens and herbs. Other produce will be featured throughout the year, and 20 items will be available on June 18 for the grand opening.
Hours of operation will be Tuesday through Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m
Green Skyscrapers That Add A Touch of Nature + Sustainability To Modern Architecture!
Polish designers Pawel Lipiński and Mateusz Frankowsk created The Mashambas Skyscraper, a vertical farm tower, that is in fact modular!
06/09/2021
Skyscrapers have taken over most of the major cities today. They’re symbols of wealth and power! And most of the skylines today are adorned with glistening glass skyscrapers. They are considered the face of modern architecture. Although all that glass and dazzle can become a little tiring to watch. Hence, architects are incorporating these tall towers with a touch of nature and greenery! The result is impressive skyscrapers merged with an element of sustainability. These green spaces help us maintain a modern lifestyle while staying connected to nature. We definitely need more of these green skyscraper designs in our urban cities!
Zaha Hadid Architects designed a pair of impressive skyscrapers that are linked by planted terraces, for Shenzhen, China. Named Tower C, the structure is 400 metres in height and is supposed to be one of the tallest buildings in the city. The terraces are filled with greenery and aquaponic gardens! They were built to be an extension of a park that is located alongside the tower and as a green public space.
Polish designers Pawel Lipiński and Mateusz Frankowsk created The Mashambas Skyscraper, a vertical farm tower, that is in fact modular! The tower can be assembled, disassembled and transported to different locations in Africa. It was conceptualised in an attempt to help and encourage new agricultural communities across Africa. The skyscraper would be moved to locations that have poor soil quality or suffer from droughts, so as to increase crop yield and produce.
The Living Skyscraper was chosen among 492 submissions that were received for the annual eVolo competition that has been running since 2006. One of the main goals of the project is to grow a living skyscraper on the principle of sustainable architecture. The ambitious architectural project has been envisioned for Manhattan and proposes using genetically modified trees to shape them into literal living skyscrapers. It is designed to serve as a lookout tower for New York City with its own flora and fauna while encouraging ecological communications between office buildings and green recreation centers. The building will function as a green habitable space in the middle of the concrete metropolis.
ODA’s explorations primarily focus on tower designs, in an attempt to bring versatility and a touch of greenery to NY’s overtly boxy and shiny cityscape. Architectural explorations look at residential units with dedicated ‘greenery zones’ that act as areas of the social congregation for the building’s residents. Adorned with curvilinear, organic architecture, and interspersed with greenery, these areas give the residents a break from the concrete-jungle aesthetic of the skyscraper-filled city. They act as areas of reflection and of allowing people to connect with nature and with one another.
Heatherwick Studio built a 20-storey residential skyscraper in Singapore called EDEN. Defined as “a counterpoint to ubiquitous glass and steel towers”, EDEN consists of a vertical stack of homes, each amped with a lush garden. The aim was to create open and flowing living spaces that are connected with nature and high on greenery.
Designed by UNStudio and COX Architecture, this skyscraper in Melbourne, Australia features a pair of twisting towers placed around a ‘green spine’ of terraces, platforms, and verandahs. Called Southbank by Beulah, the main feature of the structure is its green spine, which functions as the key organizational element of the building.
Mad Arkitekter created WoHo, a wooden residential skyscraper in Berlin. The 98-meter skyscraper will feature 29 floors with different spaces such as apartment rentals, student housing, a kindergarten, bakery, workshop, and more. Planters and balconies and terraces filled with greenery make this skyscraper a very green one indeed!
Algae as energy resources are in their beginnings and are seen as high potential. Extensive research work has dealt with algae as an energy source in recent decades. As a biofuel, they are up to 6 times more efficient than e.g. comparable fuels from corn or rapeseed. The Tubular Bioreactor Algae Skyscraper focuses on the production of microalgae and their distribution using existing pipelines. Designed by Johannes Schlusche, Paul Böhm, Raffael Grimm, the towers are positioned along the transalpine pipeline in a barren mountain landscape. Water is supplied from the surrounding mountain streams and springs, and can also be obtained from the Mediterranean using saltwater.
Tesseract by Bryant Lau Liang Cheng proposes an architecture system that allows residents to participate in not just the design of their own units; but the programs and facilities within the building itself. This process is inserted between the time of purchase for the unit and the total time required to complete construction – a period that is often ignored and neglected. Through this process, residents are allowed to choose their amenities and their communities, enhancing their sense of belonging in the process. Housing units will no longer be stacked in repetition with no relation whatsoever to the residents living in it – a sentimental bond between housing and men results.
In a world devoid of greenery, Designers Nathakit Sae-Tan & Prapatsorn Sukkaset have envisioned the concept of Babel Towers, mega skyscrapers devoted to preserving horticultural stability within a single building. The Babel towers would play an instrumental role in the propagation of greenery in and around the area. These towers would also become attraction centers for us humans, like going to a zoo, but a zoo of plants. Seems a little sad, saying this, but I do hope that we never reach a day where the Babel Tower becomes a necessity. I however do feel that having towers like these now, in our cities, would be a beautiful idea. Don’t you think so too?
USA: DENVER, COLORADO: Is Urban Farming The Next Big Condo Trend?
Lakehouse is home to a 3,000-square-foot urban farm, from which residents can pluck herbs and lettuce for dinner
May 17, 2021 | By: LX Collection
Judy Weingarten doesn’t live in a rural cottage, but in a newly opened condo at Lakehouse in Denver. Aside from the perks, you might expect from a development like this—70-foot lap pool, yoga studio, elegant residents’ lounge—Lakehouse is home to a 3,000-square-foot urban farm, from which residents can pluck herbs and lettuce for dinner.
Photo Credit: Lakehouse
“I love looking out my window at the garden, contemplating what vegetable I am going to have with my dinner tonight,” Weingarten says. “I enjoy trying new recipes based on what is harvested at the time, as well as having fresh-cut flowers throughout the summer!”
The Condo with Its Own Urban Farm
Flourishing with green beans, poblano, oregano, carrots, and eggplant, Lakehouse’s raised vegetable and herb beds are overseen by Agriburbia. The company describes itself as “an innovative and growing design movement that integrates aspects of agrarianism with land development.” While Agriburbia oversees planting, irrigation, and harvesting, residents can weigh in on what gets planted—and are encouraged to chip in with the farming too.
Brian Levitt, co-founder and president of NAVA Real Estate Development, which developed Lakehouse, tells LX Collection: “Notices will go out on harvest days inviting residents to come to the harvest room and help themselves. They are able to cull herbs from the farm for their cooking at any time. Crops are also used for community events and cooking demonstrations.”
In 2020, Lakehouse’s urban farm turned over 1,600 pounds of produce. That’s enough to provide almost four Americans with their vegetable quota for the entire year.
The Growth of Condo Gardens
Outdoor space is increasingly desirable for potential condo buyers, and while this partly stems from the pandemic and the demand for residential space en plein air, the trend began before 2020 and made outdoor space a precious commodity.
Innovative outdoor spaces have been finding their way into condominiums for years. Sky gardens have shot up from London to Ho Chi Minh City. Courtyards, lawns, and pergolas are now commonplace. In New York City, condos like 70 Charlton and 565 Broome maximize greenery with living walls. Architects and designers are looking at every last inch of space, asking, “could this be a garden?”
Until now, designers of these spaces have focused on aesthetics and creating outdoor entertaining areas, but a movement in growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs is now underway. You can see it in the sheer number of articles and explainer videos showing how to grow microgreens on the windowsill or dwarf apple trees in patio containers.
In response, some new condo developments are sowing the seeds for a genre of urban gardening where edible produce is grown and harvested in a community environment.
Ambitious Plans in Europe
In the Netherlands, a particularly ambitious urban farm concept is in the offing. MARK Green Vertical Village is a proposed complex of three towers in the city of Utrecht. Taking its inspiration from the traditional Dutch villages in the area, plans for this Vertical Village show roofs with greenhouses growing the likes of tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and apples. These year-round gardens would be owned and operated by a collective of farmers and financed by inhabitants of the 1,128 apartments via a monthly service fee. An on-site restaurant and area residents would also have access to harvests.
As with Lakehouse, MARK’s residents needn’t dig for their supper: “Participation is encouraged but not vital to the food production,” says Darius Reznek, a partner at Karres en Brands, the firm behind the plans.
But vertical villages face steep challenges. The biggest, says Reznek, is competing with traditional and industrial farming practices on cost and yield. “The farming concept/system needs to have additional benefits,” Reznek says, “community spaces, community building, soundproofing.”
While MARK is on track for completion by 2025, the urban farming aspect of it remains up in the air: “It is a vital part of the entire concept but currently under feasibility studies,” explains Reznek. He is in no doubt that a condo garden like this can happen—and be self-sustaining, too—but in the first instance, it requires an initial financial investment.
An Enhanced Sense of Community
Lakehouse’s success shows that baby steps will get you places. And while its urban farm doesn’t produce enough crops to feed residents at every meal, Brian Levitt explains it has already grown something else in abundance: community spirit.
“Our goal was to create an enhanced sense of community through education and access to good food that is grown on-site,” says Levitt. “It provides a way for residents to come together either to help in the garden or to cook together in the collaborative kitchen and outdoor grills.”
Reznek agrees that community farms and gardens sow the seeds for healthy relationships, as well as sustainability: “Common spaces are the places that tie these communities together,” he says, “where you meet your neighbors, get to know them, and are more likely to share things such as food, energy, and space.”
The urban condo farm isn’t a trend just yet. But Lakehouse is a beacon of what can be achieved, while MARK Green Vertical Village is an ideal of what might.
As residents seek sustainability, wellbeing, and community in their daily lives, expect to see the green shoots of more urban farms appearing in condos near you.
Lead Photo: Photo Credit: Chuttersnap
Natalie Portman, Other Celebs, Invest In Vertical Farming Startup Bowery
The sustainable agriculture startup, the largest vertical farming firm in the U.S., secured over $300 million from both individuals and investment groups to help expand its operations across the U.S.
$300M Investment Round Will Help
The Company Expand Its
Indoor Farms Across The U.S.
June 4, 2021
Natalie Portman | Roy Rochlin / Getty Images
Natalie Portman, an actor as well-known for her film roles as her dedication to causes ranging from the environment to animal welfare, has thrown her financial support behind a new investment round for Bowery Farming. The sustainable agriculture startup, the largest vertical farming firm in the U.S., secured over $300 million from both individuals and investment groups to help expand its operations across the U.S.
"At Bowery, we're reinventing a new supply chain that's simpler, safer, more sustainable and ultimately provides vibrantly flavorful produce unlike what's available today," Irving Fain, CEO, and Founder of Bowery Farming, said in a press release. "This infusion of new capital from Fidelity, other new investors, and the additional support of our long-term investor partners is an acknowledgment of the critical need for new solutions to our current agricultural system, and the enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission.
Portman’s investment is the latest in a series of big moves by the vegan activist to help grow companies that provide healthy, sustainable, and animal-friendly products to millions around the globe. In July of 2020, she joined others such as Oprah Winfrey and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in investing in milk-alternative startup Oatly. In November, she teamed with music artist John Legend in backing MycoWorks, a company creating vegan leather from fungus, to help raise more than $45 million.
“So now lots of people make fun of vegans, right? Lots of people make fun of anybody who cares about anything deeply, right?,” Portman said during a youth activism speech in 2019. “But I’m here to say, it is always a great thing to care…whether it’s environmental issues, animal rights, women’s rights, equality, never be afraid to show how much you care.”
Joining Portman in the latest investment round for Bowery, which has raised more than $465 million since its founding in 2014, were well-known plant-based eating advocates Lewis Hamilton and Chris Paul, as well as world-renowned chef and hunger advocate José Andrés and singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake.
Growth of vertical farming reaches new heights
So why is everyone from celebrities to investment groups throwing money at Bowery? Simply put, the skepticism around vertical farming that stunted early growth has been replaced with blooming enthusiasm in the wake of its success.
In the last year, Bowery has gone from selling produce in under 100 retail locations across the U.S. to nearly 800. According to Fain, these include such giants as Whole Foods Market, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Walmart, and Weis Markets.
“It’s definitely bigger than the pandemic,” Fain told The Spoon. “What you’re seeing is a food system that’s evolving and [people have a desire] to see transparency and traceability in the food system.”
Bowery presently has two vertical farming sites in New Jersey and Maryland, with a third slated to open in Bethlehem, PA later this year. Each industrial space features various greens and herbs (butter lettuce, cilantro, arugula, etc.) stacked vertically in trays and grown hydroponically using a state-of-the-art computer control system and LED lights. An average of 80,000 pounds of produce is generated each week using 95% less water than traditional farms and with zero pesticides or chemicals. And because these vertical farms can be built within cities, transport costs and their associated environmental impacts are drastically reduced.
While the focus for vertical farming remains firmly planted on greens, Bowery is testing new crops like tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries. They are also making constant improvements to the artificial intelligence system that monitors the plants at all times. At any moment, the computer can make changes to improve the yield or alter the flavor of a particular crop.
“We achieve a plant vision system and that vision system takes photos of our crops in real-time and runs them through our machine learning algorithms,” Fain said in an interview with Tech at Bloomberg. “We know what’s happening with a crop right now and whether it’s healthy, but then also predict what we will see with this crop based on what we’ve seen in the past and what tweaks and changes we want to make.”
Yes, we know that sounds like some slice of a dystopian future, but vertical farming is quickly proving itself a necessary technology to help feed and sustain humanity. For Fain, he believes the ability to do all of this with fewer resources, chemicals, and independent changing climate conditions or unexpected global crises is something that should be celebrated and not feared.
“I actually view it as this incredibly optimistic opportunity to say, ‘Wow, like, isn't it amazing that technology has taken us to a point where something that we've done in a certain way for hundreds and hundreds of years with iteration and optimization can really be rethought and re-imagined in totality because of human creativity and human ingenuity?", he told MyClimateJourney. “And I think that's actually exciting and that's something that we should be happy about and optimistic about. And that to me is really the message in what we're building at Bowery.”
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When You Plant A Farm In A City, It Tastes Like The Future
“We’ve literally flipped the farm on its end,” smiles Matt Barnard, co-founder and executive chairman of Plenty, “We’ve developed technology to deliver all the things plants need--nutrients, water, climate
By Changing America Staff
June 4, 2021
From the outside, the warehouse looks like any of the other industrial manufacturing buildings you find in this part of San Francisco. But that's just a facade. When you walk in, it's as if you have entered a portal to another world. In fact, that's exactly what it is. Welcome to the future of agriculture.
Instead of a traditional farmhouse, you'll find the sort of office space you'd see at Silicon Valley companies like Facebook or Apple. But keep walking and you'll see the farm. Instead of sprawling fields of crops stretching across acres of Iowa or Illinois farmland, you'll see a space the size of a Target store that resembles a high-tech luxury car assembly line, featuring vertical tubes that sprout two stories tall, each one packed with leafy greens that are lovingly surrounded by thousands of UV lights.
“We’ve literally flipped the farm on its end,” smiles Matt Barnard, co-founder and executive chairman of Plenty, “We’ve developed technology to deliver all the things plants need--nutrients, water, climate. And we do that in ways that are not only efficient but they also allow us to control flavor to an extent that's never been possible before.”
The field hands here look more like astronauts than farmers. They wear what resemble full-body hazmat suits, which help maintain an impeccably strict level of hygiene. This prevents any contamination of the plants, since one of the main selling points of Plenty's produce is that it doesn't use pesticides. As workers bustle about the warehouse with iPads, checking data points that help them engineer perfect bunches of arugula and kale, you might forget you’re at a farm at all--apart from that one employee over there wearing a cowboy hat.
“Things that would normally take years on the farm I grew up on taking just months here," says Barnard. "Yield gains that take a decade in a field, we deliver in a few weeks. There’s no way to do that other than data. This new way of farming has really demanded that we be a data-driven company.”
Plenty's intense focus on data allows it to precisely calibrate its usage of California's most precious resource: water. The Golden State is the leading producer of agriculture in the United States, and consequently, the state with the highest water usage for farming--in fact, 40 percent of all water used in the state goes into agriculture. For the past decade, however, California has been suffering from brutal drought, the driest period in recorded state history. It’s a full-blown crisis that is only getting worse as the planet warms up further.
That's where the genius of Plenty comes in. The obsessive attention to data allows the company to increase the efficiency of its yield and cut down dramatically on the water necessary to grow it. Compared to nearby lettuce farms in Salinas and Yuma, Plenty is saving approximately a million gallons of water per week.
In fact, the company argues that it is as much an infrastructure resource as an agricultural enterprise. Because it grows locally, it ensures nearby residents have delicious food to eat--and jobs to work at--all year round, even in barren food deserts, and even during times of severe supply-chain crises (wildfires, drought, ransomware attacks or, say, a global pandemic).
Because everything happens in an indoor controlled climate, Plenty has no seasons. It can plant, grow and harvest late summer plants like its pristine strawberries every month of the year.
Plenty isn't just growing food, though. “Because we are able to grow 365 days a year, and grow plants that taste like late summer plants all year round, we get to invest in our people," says Barnard. "They’re here as long as they want to be here. It’s not seasonal, we know who’s going to be here next year, everyone gets to grow their income and their careers.”
The company is expanding quickly. They have a contract with the berry giant Driscoll’s to start producing strawberries, and they’re building a second farm in the unlikely working-class community of Compton, south of Los Angeles.
Barnard envisions dozens and eventually hundreds of vertical farms across the country. This is where other countries, especially China, are headed fast and Plenty makes a strong argument that American federal and state governments should start planting the seeds of vertical farms as quickly as possible to avoid falling behind.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out their website, https://www.plenty.ag/, and try some of their famous lettuce next time you’re in the Bay area.
Published on Jun 04, 2021
Were Medieval Cities Greener? Urban Agriculture In The Middle Ages
Cities have grown so rapidly in the past century that we tend to forget that, until the late nineteenth century, the vast majority of people actually lived in rural settings
By Lucie Laumonier
Cities have grown so rapidly in the past century that we tend to forget that, until the late nineteenth century, the vast majority of people actually lived in rural settings. Even just one hundred years ago, most of the suburbs of large modern cities were completely rural.
In the Middle Ages, cities comprised a large population of farmers, ploughmen, and agriculturalists who worked in close vicinity to urban spaces. Most cities’ outskirts included an important portion of estates dedicated to agriculture where urban peasants laboured. However, one of the key characteristics of any city is that the food it produces does not suffice to feed its population. Medieval cities thus had to import most of the foodstuff required to sustain their citizens, even if a portion of it was produced locally.
Medieval cities were also full of gardens and vegetable beds that people cultivated for their own sustenance or for extra revenues. This preoccupation with urban agriculture is evident in Le Ménagier, a housekeeping guide written by a fourteenth-century gentleman from Paris for his young wife which included several sections about gardens. This was done in part so that his wife would “have some knowledge on horticulture and gardening, grafting in the proper season, and keeping roses in winter.”
This article looks at the urban farmers of medieval France and discusses the roles of the gardens that were found throughout medieval cities.
Urban peasants: How Many Were There?
Medieval population estimates depend on the nature of available sources, few of which were drafted for demographic purposes. Wills and fiscal sources are often the main indicators of a population’s stratification. In the town of Manresa, Catalonia, 13.5% of fifteenth-century taxpayers were farmers. This proportion is relatively low, especially compared to the large city of Montpellier, Languedoc, which counted more than 30,000 inhabitants on the eve of the Black Death. There, 22% of the 1380-1480 taxpayers were farmers or gardeners.
The data thus suggests that one in five late medieval urban dwellers in Montpellier practised agriculture. But, except for the gardeners, we have no concrete information about the actual work the farmers performed. We do not know for instance what proportion specialized in cattle or sheep rearing; how many were mainly producing wine or cereals. We do not know either how many owned the fields they tilled, how many farmed the estates of others, or how many had no land and no job security, and hopped from farm to farm looking for work.
A gardener from around the year 1425, depicted in the Housebooks of Nuremberg – Amb. 317.2 fol. 8v
Part-Time Urban Farmers
Few work contracts were made by the urban peasantry. In Marseille, Provence, 10% of the fourteenth-century work contracts analysed by Francine Michaud concerned farming and agriculture. The figure is low but compares to the data I collected for Montpellier in Languedoc. The reason for such a small figure is that agriculture, in general, seldom prompted the drafting of a work contract, even in rural settings where it was the primary occupation of workers. Since agricultural work was seasonal in nature, it rarely called for the legal guarantees long-term work contracts required.
In the Montpellier sources, some self-identified urban peasants juggled different jobs, suggesting that agriculture was not, in fact, their full-time occupation. Some men described themselves as “agriculturalist and gardener”. Two men were “carpenter and ploughmen;” one taxpayer worked as “musician and ploughman and public crier;” one was a “glove maker and ploughman;” while another was listed as a “ploughman and fishmonger.” It is possible that agriculture was their primary occupation but that they had a side activity to make ends meet.
But it is also possible these workers took on agricultural work during harvest season as a way to supplement their earnings coming from their other activity. Medieval city dwellers often owned small pieces of land they rented out or cultivated in their free time. In the town of Castelnaudary, near Toulouse, 95% of the fourteenth-century taxpaying inhabitants owned at least some agricultural land. The rate was 91.5% in the fifteenth century. Most of these landowners held very small estates (less than 2 hectares), which would not have sufficed to sustain their families. Nonetheless, these lands did offer the guarantee of some sustenance to their owners.
Urban Gardens for the Poor and the Wealthy
Vegetables, fruits, and various herbs had always been cultivated in cities for practical and sustenance purposes. Cities were covered with backyard vegetable beds in which people planted cabbage, carrots, peas, and other products they would eat. Historian Jerry Stannard dubbed such vegetable beds “kitchen gardens” and underlines that “the produce of the smallest, most crudely tilled plot was preferable to nothing at all,” in that they provided “free” food to their owners. Besides vegetables, artisans and workers also planted (grew) medicinal plants.
However, the existence of kitchen gardens often depended on the population density of cities and on the demographic context. At times of demographic pressure, when cities were full, the spaces taken up by the gardens and vegetable patches of the poor were used for housing. The size and number of such gardens therefore decreased. But when the population declined, such as after the Black Death, unoccupied lots and abandoned houses were turned into vegetable beds to help sustain more modest households. Today still, depopulation in cities sometimes prompts the reconversion of available lands into gardens and parks.
Unthreatened by demographic changes were the patrician gardens that belonged to the wealthier inhabitants of cities. These gardens were usually of the mixed type, containing edible and medicinal plants as well as ornamental species cultivated for their beauty and delightful scents. Ornamental gardens were heavily featured in medieval literature (which teems with scenes unfolding in gardens), where protagonists engaged in all sorts of activities — preferably courting a lady or discussing philosophy with allegorical figures. The Romance of the Rose is a fitting example of such.
An illustration from Roman de La Rose, depicting a fountain and a stream pouring outwards from the centre of the garden – Wikimedia Commons
Ornamental Gardens: Aromatherapy and the Pleasure of the Senses
Ornamental gardens gained traction (in popularity) after the devastations of the plague and its ulterior episodes. The scientific belief that nasty vapours carrying miasmas had caused the disease, as the airborne transmission of plague through droplets had been acknowledged by medieval physicians, fuelled the idea that gardens had the power to clean up the air. Gardens, in short, had a curative power one should not ignore. Through their odour, wrote Italian physician Marsilio Ficino in the second half of the fifteenth century, flowers and plants “restore and invigorate you on all sides, as if by the breath and spirit of the life of the world.”
The curative virtues of gardens worked in two ways, notes historian Carol Rawcliffe. On the one hand, the smell of flowers restores health by strengthening the heart, while on the other it works as a prophylactic agent. Medieval scientists recommended the scent of roses and violets as a form of protection against the plague. The perfume of violets was also prescribed to treat headaches, fevers, and skin diseases. Fourteenth-century physician John of Burgundy therefore recommended “to smell roses, violets, and lilies” before leaving one’s home in times of plague to avoid catching the disease.
Even more ambitious was physician Ibn Khatimah, who had witnessed the devastations of the Black Death in Andalusia. He argued that cities should protect themselves from the plague through the intensive cultivation of sweet-smelling plants around their boundaries. This physical barrier against the disease could then be enhanced by the stockpiling of plants to prevent its vapours from reaching the cities’ dwellers. In their homes, town dwellers could scatter freshly cut herbs and flowers on the floor to clear the air; and “refresh” their straw mattresses with the addition of lavender and other plants.
Besides the curative virtues listed above, medieval physicians also believed flowers to be beneficial to mental health. Walking in gardens, smelling and looking at flowers uplifted people’s morale, which in turn had positive effects on their general health. Moderate exercise and strolls in gardens or, when possible, in the countryside, cured both the soul and the body. The reason why medieval hospitals kept gardens in their precincts were both practical (cultivating the medicine and food they needed) and philosophical, thus enabling the sick to breathe some fresh air and engage in light yet invigorating activities.
Medieval cities were surrounded by agricultural estates. Within their walls, the urban space was partly covered with gardens that belonged to the wealthy, to hospitals and convents. In humbler neighbourhoods, the extent land was taken up by private gardens depended on the period of time and the density of the city in question. The fewer the inhabitants of a city, the more numerous its gardens tended to be. Besides their role in alimentation, gardens, ornamental ones especially, also had medicinal virtues for the soul and the body. In the Middle Ages, smelling the roses was to be taken literally.
Lucie Laumonier is an Affiliate assistant professor at Concordia University. Click here to view her Academia.edu page or follow her on Instagram at The French Medievalist.
US: INDIANA - Indianapolis Indoor Farm Packages Leafy Greens To Uplift East Side
An indoor-farming facility using cutting-edge technology is bringing new food options to the city’s east side
by: David Williams
May 7, 2021
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An indoor-farming facility using cutting-edge technology is bringing new food options to the city’s east side.
Uplift Produce grows, harvests, and packages leafy greens in a renovated 60,000-square-foot facility in Indianapolis.
“We say that we’re fresh-to-market in hours and the reason for that is we actually harvest, pack, and ship within a matter of a few hours into distribution channels,” Chris Arnold, CEO of Uplift Produce, said Friday.
Keith Cooper, Uplift Produce location manager, said depending on the product, they grow from seed to finish in 14-21 days, with a “100% controlled environment. So, we’re controlling the CO2, the humidity, and temperature to be exactly at the set points that the plant needs.”
The business is a joint venture with a Dutch company called PlantLab. The first product launched from the Indianapolis facility in October. Arnold said the company is committed to uplifting the community.
“It’s working well here in Indianapolis to have that partnership, meaning that every dollar that’s ever made here, a portion of those goes directly right back here into the community,” Arnold said.
They’ve got 11 employees right now. Uplift produce donates about 150 pounds of food a week to places that include Second Helpings hunger relief and the Cafe Patachou Foundation. This area is in the midst of revitalization.
“Everything that we do is really centered around, ‘How do we uplift people and the whole community support?’ Really that partnership with Englewood and the work that the folks at the Englewood Community Development Corporation are doing here in the community, we’re really just trying to equip them to continue to do the work that they do,” Arnold said.
Arnold said he is called to do this work — not only to feed people but also to help this area.
“Our desire is that people would be able to just live, work and play in this neighborhood. Be able to directly walk into work and never have to get in a car,” Arnold said.
The Englewood Community Development Corporation is an ownership partner, Arnold said. The facility is housed at the historic P.R. Mallory campus, inside the Bunker Building.
Arnold told News 8 there are plans to expand the facility even more by the end of this year and bring an additional 20 jobs to Indianapolis.
Uplift Produce has facilities in seven different states and several cities. You can find their products online at Green Bean Delivery and hope to sell on retail shelves in Indianapolis soon.
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INDIA: VIDEO - University Student Runs Farm In Kuala Lumpur
Ah Pa, a well-known YouTube cook recently visited Sean, a university student living in Kuala Lumpur who runs his own farm. As Sean calls it, his E-farm is located in the middle of the city
Ah Pa, a well-known YouTube cook recently visited Sean, a university student living in Kuala Lumpur who runs his own farm. As Sean calls it, his E-farm is located in the middle of the city.
The self-built foil-greenhouse comprises 1000 sq. ft. and is filled with vertical growing towers and an aquaponic system. Currently, the farm has 1000 tilapia that are fed by the plants grown in Sean's greenhouse. "We're growing more than 20 plants here," says Sean, whereas we can grow up to 60 different plants and herbs."
Click on the video below to hear Sean's story.
23 Apr 2021
USA: Zenat Begum Turned A Bustling Brooklyn Street Corner Into A Working Greenhouse
She reached out to Jasper Kerbs of the Cooper Union Garden Project and, with the help of several volunteers, the structure was erected in October of last year. The shop is utilizing one of the city’s outdoor vending permits and they’re in the midst of harvesting this month
The owner of Playground Coffee Shop transformed the cafe’s outdoor dining space into a project centered around care, creativity, and community
April 21, 2021
“I’m inviting people that I love to come and dress up the facade,” Zenat says of the greenhouse's verdant mural by artist Tiffany Baker. “I’m inviting people that I really respect to come and build these things because we deserve the best.”Image courtesy of Zenat Begum
To understand how a fully functioning greenhouse ended up at the busy intersection of Quincy Street and Bedford Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, it’s important to get to know Zenat Begum, the owner of Playground Coffee Shop.
Zenat opened the shop back in 2016, in a space that previously housed her father’s hardware store, and quickly expanded to include the Playground Annex, which houses a radio station and bookstore, as well as Playground Youth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to issues confronting the community, including literacy and food equity.
“I believe in Bed-Stuy. I believe in myself. I believe in the shop. I believe in the greenhouse,” says Playground Coffee Shop owner Zenat Begum. “These are things that are active radical attempts. We are imagining our futures because these things aren’t going to be built for us.”Image courtesy of Zenat Begum
Providing for the community is fundamental to each project that the Playground team takes on. “Every time we do something, we change and raise the bar of what should be done in our communities,” Zenat explains. “I’m talking about being able to keep implementing this really large notion and understanding of entrepreneurship into taking care of your communities.”
Shortly after the pandemic hit, Playground got to work on several mutual aid projects. The team established a take-one-leave-one library that distributes works exclusively by writers of color, assembled a network of volunteers distributing PPE and essential supplies at Black Lives Matter protests, and they worked with organizers to create a network of community fridges providing free produce 24 hours a day.
It was while working on the fridge project that the idea for the greenhouse began to crystalize, in realizing that fundamentally addressing the issues surrounding food sovereignty wasn’t, as she says, “as simple as just donating a fridge.”
Zenat cites the statistics: One in three kids in New York City are food insecure, and one in 10 in public schools experience homelessness. She probed further, looking at obesity and food deserts and gentrification. “Let’s reel it back: Why aren’t there programs that support Black and brown families who can’t support their children with adequate nourishment and nutrition?”
“It made me really frustrated. We need to have a plot of land that grows for this. We need to get an actual farm to be able to grow food for this,” Zenat says. And never having built a greenhouse before didn’t scare her off. “I don’t really have the tools,” she thought. “But I also know that, for the understanding that I have and the experience that I’ve had growing up in New York, I know what a New Yorker deserves, which is a lot more.”
She reached out to Jasper Kerbs of the Cooper Union Garden Project and, with the help of several volunteers, the structure was erected in October of last year. The shop is utilizing one of the city’s outdoor vending permits and they’re in the midst of harvesting this month.
When they’re able to resume programming, Zenat intends to teach kids in the neighborhood how to get involved and have plots so they can start growing together. “The most important thing about this is that this will be an opportunity for kids who live in Bed-Stuy to see food growing, to show them that there is life that starts at fertilizing and that we can be involved in the process of food distribution and food harvesting from the very beginning.”
“Our greenhouse is straight up on the street. I want people to see that these structures have to and should exist.”Image courtesy of Zenat Begum
And she acknowledges the responsibility and history that comes with this endeavor. “We’re on stolen land right now,” Zenat says. “We’re thinking about farming practices that date back to East Asia, which is where my family is from, and sharecropping that was implemented during the period just after slavery, which is one of the darkest times in history, period. But with all of those tragedies and travesties occurring, there is this sense of land and relationship that we have that we need to bring back to ourselves. It’s ancestral, of course, and it’s spiritual, but most importantly it’s territorial. Why is it that Black and brown people have a hard time with housing and food insecurity when we have literally created some of the most adequate and sophisticated food systems in the world? Our bodies are used to actually supply people with this type of food and nourishment.”
“So there’s many things that we’re addressing here, but I only hope that at surface level we’re talking about things that actually make a difference, which is ultimately feeding children.”
In true Playground style, the greenhouse is one of many initiatives in the works—from financial literacy courses and book clubs to bystander intervention trainings. Given Zenat’s dedication, there’s no doubt they’ll come to fruition. “The way that I love New York is so poetic. I’m like one of those gnarly girlfriends, ‘Did you eat today? Do you want water?’” She asks the city: “Did you eat today, New York? Do you want water? Do you want a pillow?”
If you’d like to support Playground Youth, there is a fundraiser underway for programming and operational costs.
USA: NEW JERSEY - AeroFarms Expands Global Headquarters To Support Growth And Innovation
Indoor vertical farming leader continues commitment to Newark as it expands presence within the community
April 23, 2021
Indoor vertical farming leader continues commitment to Newark as it expands presence within the community
Co-Founder & CEO David Rosenberg recognized as ROI-NJ Top Technology Influencer
AeroFarms, a certified B Corporation and leader in indoor vertical farming, today announced that the Company has received its certificate of occupancy for expansion of its global headquarters in Newark, New Jersey. To support its corporate expansion, AeroFarms recently completed the build-out of an additional 25,000 square feet at its headquarters for new office space and more expansive R&D and Innovation Centers of Excellence.
In 2015, AeroFarms partnered closely with the City of Newark and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), to relocate its headquarters to Newark from the Finger Lakes region of New York with the goal of creating more than 75 year-round jobs in the local community. Today, AeroFarms employs in Newark more than 150 team members, and the Company is delivering on its vision of not only serving the broader New York metro area but also serving as the global epicenter for large scale commercial indoor vertical farming and the latest in breakthrough proprietary technologies addressing some of the world’s most pressing agricultural challenges.
AeroFarms has been leading the way for innovation and technology breakthroughs since its inception and will continue to build on this legacy through continued R&D and infrastructure to maintain its leadership position as the Company scales. Earlier this week, AeroFarms Co-Founder and CEO David Rosenberg was recognized as a Top Technology Influencer by New Jersey media outlet ROI-NJ, further demonstrating the Company’s leadership in technology and innovation.
"New Jersey and Newark have been the perfect home for AeroFarms to recruit the best talent for horticulture, engineering, data science, operations, and food safety enabling us to reimagine agriculture in the Garden State," said Rosenberg. "We are scaling farms around the world, partnering closely with major multi-national retailers, and our newly expanded global headquarters will be a showcase for our transformative work and innovation that will further drive our mission to grow the best plants possible for the betterment of humanity."
AeroFarms has a long history of community involvement, including partnering with Ironbound Community Corporation and NJ Reentry Program, which offers career opportunities to those previously incarcerated. In addition, AeroFarms has made an impact with its Community Farms, working with partners such as Newark-based Philips Academy Charter School and their EcoSpaces program. The Company also partnered with the City of Jersey City and the World Economic Forum’s Healthy Cities and Communities initiative for the first-ever municipal indoor vertical farming program, consisting of ten vertical farms throughout Jersey City located in senior centers, schools, public housing complexes, and municipal buildings. The ten sites will grow 19,000 pounds of vegetables annually, using targeted aeroponics water mist and minimal electricity, and the food will be provided to the community for no cost.
About AeroFarms
Since 2004, AeroFarms has been leading the way for indoor vertical farming and championing transformational innovation for agriculture. On a mission to grow the best plants possible for the betterment of humanity, AeroFarms is a Certified B Corporation Company with global headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, United States. Named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company two years in a row and one of TIME’s Best Inventions, AeroFarms patented, award-winning indoor vertical farming technology provides the perfect conditions for healthy plants to thrive, taking agriculture to a new level of precision, food safety, and productivity while using up to 95% less water and no pesticides versus traditional field farming. AeroFarms enables local production to safely grow all year round for its commercial retail brand that offers peak flavor always®. In addition, through its proprietary growing technology platform, AeroFarms has developed multi-year strategic partnerships ranging from government to major Fortune 500 companies to help uniquely solve agriculture supply chain needs. For additional information, visit: https://aerofarms.com/.
On March 26, 2021, AeroFarms announced a definitive business combination agreement with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SV). Upon the closing of the business combination, AeroFarms will become publicly traded on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol "ARFM". Additional information about the transaction can be viewed here: https://aerofarms.com/investors/
No Offer or Solicitation
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction in connection with a proposed potential business combination among Spring Valley and AeroFarms or any related transactions, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction where, or to any person to whom, such offer, solicitation or sale may be unlawful. Any offering of securities or solicitation of votes regarding the proposed transaction will be made only by means of a proxy statement/prospectus that complies with applicable rules and regulations promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or pursuant to an exemption from the Securities Act or in a transaction not subject to the registration requirements of the Securities Act.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements included in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "should," "would," "plan," "predict," "potential," "seem," "seek," "future," "outlook," and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included in this presentation, regarding Spring Valley’s proposed acquisition of AeroFarms, Spring Valley’s ability to consummate the transaction, the benefits of the transaction, and the combined company’s future financial performance, as well as the combined company’s strategy, future operations, estimated financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of the respective management of AeroFarms and Spring Valley and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction, or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of AeroFarms and Spring Valley. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political, and legal conditions; the inability of the parties to successfully or timely consummate the proposed transaction, including the risk that any regulatory approvals are not obtained, are delayed or are subject to unanticipated conditions that could adversely affect the combined company or the expected benefits of the proposed transaction or that the approval of the stockholders of Spring Valley or AeroFarms is not obtained; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction; risks relating to the uncertainty of the projected financial information with respect to AeroFarms; risks related to the expansion of AeroFarms’ business and the timing of expected business milestones; the effects of competition on AeroFarms’ business; the ability of Spring Valley or AeroFarms to issue equity or equity-linked securities or obtain debt financing in connection with the proposed transaction or in the future, and those factors discussed in Spring Valley’s final prospectus dated November 25, 2020 under the heading "Risk Factors," and other documents Spring Valley has filed, or will file, with the SEC. If any of these risks materialize or our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that neither Spring Valley nor AeroFarms presently knows, or that Spring Valley nor AeroFarms currently believe are immaterial, that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect Spring Valley’s and AeroFarms’ expectations, plans, or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. Spring Valley and AeroFarms anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause Spring Valley’s and AeroFarms’ assessments to change. However, while Spring Valley and AeroFarms may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Spring Valley and AeroFarms specifically disclaim any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Spring Valley’s and AeroFarms’ assessments of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210423005283/en/
Contacts
AeroFarms Contacts
Investor Relations:
Jeff Sonnek
ICR
Jeff.Sonnek@icrinc.com
1-646-277-1263
Media Relations:
Marc Oshima
AeroFarms
MarcOshima@AeroFarms.com
1-917-673-4602
Turning Empty Spaces Into Urban Farms
With a lower occupancy rate in both retail and office spaces, property developers probably could redevelop the buildings for another usage – urban or vertical farming as done in Singapore with tremendous success
EVEN as many ordinary Malaysians struggle to make ends meet arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, empty shop lots continue to mount along the streets and some even display signs that say “available for rent”.
With the growing importance of food self-sufficiency, now is the time for Malaysia to turn empty spaces into urban farms – tackling food security-related issues besides making good use of the existing sites.
Urban farming is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in or around urban areas.
Although Malaysia is rich in natural resources, we are highly dependent on high-value imported foods. Presently, our self-sufficiency level for fruits, vegetables and meat products stands at 78.4%, 44.6% and 22.9%, respectively.
With a lower occupancy rate in both retail and office spaces, property developers probably could redevelop the buildings for another usage – urban or vertical farming as done in Singapore with tremendous success.
According to the National Property Information Centre, the occupancy rate for shopping malls in Malaysia has dropped consecutively for five years. It declined from 79.2% in 2019 to 77.5% in 2020, the lowest level since 2003.
Penang recorded the lowest occupancy rate at 72.8%, followed by Johor Baru and Kuching (75.3%), Selangor (80%), Kuala Lumpur (82%), and Kota Kinabalu (82.1%).
In addition, the Valuation and Property Services Department revealed a lower occupancy rate at Malaysia’s privately-owned office buildings compared to the pre-pandemic era.
For instance, Johor Baru recorded the lowest occupancy rate of privately-owned office buildings at 61.9%, followed by Selangor (67.5%), the city centre of Kuala Lumpur (77.8%), Penang (79.8%), Kota Kinabalu (86.5%), and Kuching (87.1%).
Aquaponics – pesticide-free farming that combines aquaculture (growing fish) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil) – would be the way forward.
To summarise, aquaponics is one of the soilless farming techniques that allow fish to do most of the work by eating and producing waste. The beneficial bacteria in the water will convert waste into nutrient-rich water and is fed into the soil-less plants.
Following are the steps for vertical aquaponic farming:
1. Small growth cups are filled with coco peat, which are then sterilised under ultraviolet light, preventing bacteria and viruses from entering into the water pumps. There is an additional control over the environment with regard to temperature and daylight through the use of LED growth lights.
2. A hole is poked in the middle of the cup, where a plant seed is placed inside. The use of non-genetically modified organism seeds, where the majority are imported from reliable sources, is very much encouraged.
3. The seed is germinated for one to three days in a room.
4. Once the seed has germinated and grown to about two centimetres, the pots can be placed in the vertical harvest tower.
5. Nutrient-filled water from the fish pond flows to the plants automatically. Big plants grow within 30 days.
While enabling the growth of many varieties of vegetables with indoor temperature conditions, aquaponics can generate fish production, sustaining economic livelihoods particularly for the underprivileged and disabled communities, as well as fresh graduates who are still struggling to secure a decent job.
Although Sunway FutureX Farm, Kebun-Kebun Bangsar, and Urban Hijau, for instance, are good urban farming initiatives in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur, there are still many potential sites that could be transformed into urban farms.
Therefore, Malaysia perhaps can adopt Singapore’s approach by using hydroponics on roofs of car park structures and installing urban farms into existing unutilised buildings.
As it requires only a quarter of the size of a traditional farm to produce the same quantity of vegetables, the vertical rooftop system would yield more than four times compared with conventional farming. At the same time, it also reduces the need to clear land for agricultural use while avoiding price fluctuation.
Besides reducing over-reliance on imports and cutting carbon emissions, indoor vertical farming within the existing building also allows local food production as part of the supply chain.
It could expand into workshops, demos and expos besides offering guided and educational tours that promote the joy of urban farming.
Through urban farming structure inside a building, stressed-out office workers and the elderly, in particular, can enjoy a good indoor environment, air quality and well-ventilated indoor spaces. They can also relax their mind through gardening and walking around urban farms.
To increase the portion of food supplied locally, the government needs to empower farmers and the relevant stakeholders, incentivising the private sector in urban farming and providing other support through facilitating, brokering and investing.
This in turn would enhance the supply and affordability of a wide range of minimally processed plant-based foods as suggested under the latest Malaysia Economic Monitor “Sowing the Seeds” report by the World Bank.
With the current administration’s laudable commitment to tackling food security-related issues, this would provide an opportunity for Malaysia to review the current national food security policy by addressing productivity, resources optimisation, sustainable consumption, climate change, water and land scarcity.
By putting greater emphasis on urban farming, the government could empower farmers to plant more nutritious, higher-value crops; to improve their soil through modern technologies application (i.e., Internet of Things, Big Data and artificial intelligence); and to benefit from increased opportunities by earning higher returns on their generally small landholdings.
The government could also provide seeds, fertilisers and pesticides-related subsidies paid directly to the urban farmers through a voucher system.
For instance, the urban farming operators could use the voucher to buy high-quality seeds from any vendor or company.
The vendor also can use the voucher to claim payment from the government.
Not only would this approach create healthy competition among vendors, but it would also stimulate agricultural activities.
And given that current youth involvement in the agriculture sector is only 240,000 or 15% of total farmers in Malaysia as noted by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Industries (Mafi) I, Datuk Seri Ahmad Hamzah, Mafi, the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives and Ministry of Youth and Sports have to craft training programmes and develop grant initiatives together – attracting the younger generation of agropreneurs to get involved in urban farming.
These ministries can also work with the Department of Agriculture, Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, and Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority to develop more comprehensive urban farming initiatives.
While providing job opportunities for youths to embark on urban farming, young agropreneurs can enjoy higher income and productivity, and yields, on top of increasing the contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product.
For urban farming to thrive in Malaysia, the government perhaps can adopt and adapt the Singapore government’s approach: developing specific targets to encourage local food production.
Even though Singapore has limited resources, it is still setting an ambitious target – increasing the portion of food supplied locally to 30% by 2030.
The upcoming 12th Malaysia Plan also will provide timely opportunities for the government to turn empty spaces into urban farming in the context of the ongoing impact of Covid-19 besides fostering agricultural modernisation by leveraging on Industrial 4.0.
In a nutshell, every Malaysian can do their part to help Malaysia become more food resilient. By converting empty spaces into urban farms, it can reduce food waste, encourage local products purchase and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Amanda Yeo is a research analyst at EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research. Comment: letters@thesundaily.com
Flushing Hydroponic Systems: Nutrient Imbalance, Waste, And An Alternative Solution
We recommend that hydroponic growers flush their systems every month to every few months, depending on the type of system they’re running. But why? We’re also fans of the recirculating system because it conserves water and nutrients
We recommend that hydroponic growers flush their systems every month to every few months, depending on the type of system they’re running. But why? We’re also fans of the recirculating system because it conserves water and nutrients.
Article from | ZipGrow
04/06/21
Is flushing hydroponic systems wasteful?
We recommend that hydroponic growers flush their systems every month to every few months, depending on the type of system they’re running. But why? We’re also fans of recirculating system because it conserves water and nutrients, so it seems counterintuitive to dump gallons of nutrient solution every few months.
Let’s talk about why this is necessary and how you can practice conservation.
The problem: nutrient imbalance
The main reason for flushing a hydroponic system is a nutrient imbalance. Hydroponic fertilizers are specifically formulated for specific crops (you can buy nutrients for a type of crop, like greens or flowers), but each farmer grows a different combination of crops in different conditions, and the ratios in which plants take up nutrients is usually just a little bit off.
This nutrient imbalance is also affected by metal components if the system has any. Zinc and aluminum ions can cause toxicities if they accumulate over time. While it’s easy to just use plastic tanks and fittings or to coat the metal components in your system with epoxy to reduce leaching, sometimes the presence of metal is unavoidable.
Another reason that growers flush their system is a hygiene practice. Algae and many plant pathogens can survive in the water, and regular cleaning with a mild bleach or peroxide solution or another oxidizing agent is a preventative measure.
Two solutions: flushing and mass balancing
Most hydroponic growers take care of this nutrient balance problem by flushing the system and starting from scratch with nutrients. This is certainly the easiest method. Be sure to check with your local town or municipality to follow the correct disposal procedure.
This practice can have a downside, however, because often the solution dumped from a system when it is being flushed isn’t used elsewhere. This can be wasteful.
The alternative to flushing a hydroponic system is to learn to mass balance. To do this, growers would get their water tested for individual nutrient levels. This usually has to be done through a lab.
Then the grower would adjust each individual nutrient to its proper level.
The reason that many growers choose to flush over mass balancing is that lab tests can be pricey (you’ll probably have to pay at least $50, and sometimes up to $500). Still, this option can be cost-effective, depending on the size of the system and access to lab testing.
Ultimately, how you choose to deal with a nutrient balance is up to you.
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of AgriTechTomorrow
Indoor & Vertical Farming, Monitoring & Growing Fertilizer, Hydroponics
Continuing Education: Urban Agriculture
It’s been 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution gave rise to cities. Agriculture now covers more than half of the world’s habitable land and is spreading at a rate of about 15 million acres annually
April 1, 2021
It’s been 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution gave rise to cities. Agriculture now covers more than half of the world’s habitable land and is spreading at a rate of about 15 million acres annually. Cities, meanwhile, now comprise more than half the global population (over 80 percent in developed countries), and the numbers are rising. Using current farming methods to feed a global population expected to hit 10 billion by midcentury would require adding new farmland equal in size to the continental United States.
This alarming situation is not even factoring in the impact of the climate crisis, which is expected to alter growing seasons and disrupt the phenological cycles that keep plants and their pollinators in sync. What’s more, new agricultural land mostly comes from felling biodiverse, carbon-sequestering forests to make room for mono-crops that stash very few greenhouse gases and for livestock that actually generate them. That makes the climate crisis worse and farming more difficult.
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In addition to land consumption, agriculture guzzles three-quarters of the fresh water used globally each year, while runoff from fields treated with herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers contaminates significant amounts of the water that’s left. Then there’s transportation. As farms extend farther and farther from the cities they supply, food is trucked, shipped, and flown vast distances: farm to plate, the ingredients in a typical American meal travel an average of 1,500 miles. From a security perspective, the fact that most of the world’s food production is controlled by just a handful of corporations is unnerving. And from a public health perspective, the emergence of Covid-19 and other new diseases offers yet another indicator of ecological imbalance. It’s time to rethink the way we farm.
Food security, as defined by the United Nations, means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that serves their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. Key to achieving food security in a way that’s more sustainable than current practices is urban agriculture—not as an outright replacement for rural farming, but as a crucial component in a balanced system.
Urban agriculture can take many forms: rooftop greenhouses, raised beds, and community-farming initiatives such as the City of Atlanta’s “Aglanta” program, which turns underused parcels in utility rights-of-way into farm plots eligible for U.S. Department of Agriculture certificates and associated loans. Ultimately, though, horizontal strategies are not productive enough to make a real dent in the food needs of a city. (If raised beds covered every rooftop in Manhattan, the produce grown would feed only about 2 percent of the borough’s population.) Just as cities grow vertically, so too must urban agriculture, and that means bringing it indoors.
“Controlled environments have been used for many years,” says Chieri Kubota, a professor of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at Ohio State University. “Now that multiple issues are making conventional production outdoors more difficult, putting controlled environments in and near cities brings food production closer to potential markets—and also to younger generations of potential farmers who want to live in urban centers.”
Vertical agriculture is a type of CEA that—like high-rise buildings—stacks layers to provide usable area many times the footprint of the site. Instead of growing in soil, which is a heavy way to deliver nutrients, plants in vertical farms are grown hydroponically, aquaponically, or aeroponically. In hydroponics, plants are cultivated in nutrient-enriched water, which is captured and reused so that the system uses as little as a tenth of the water conventional agriculture needs. An aquaponic system pairs hydroponics with fish production, circulating the nutrients in the fish waste to feed the vegetables, and using the plants as a biofiltration system that returns clean water to the fish. Reducing water consumption even further—by as much as 98 percent, compared to field growing—aeroponic systems deliver nutrients in a fine mist to plant roots that are just hanging in the air. And because controlled environments exclude the weeds and pests that trouble field-grown produce, the use of herbicides and pesticides is all but eliminated.
Stacked plants may need to be rotated to make the most of available sunlight, which can be supplemented (or even substituted altogether) with LED grow lights. These can be calibrated to provide blue and red light in optimal doses for each type of plant, and timed to increase plant growth with extended days and growing seasons. (While it’s technically possible to grow any type of crop this way, for now it’s mainly leafy greens and tomatoes that are economically viable.) Cool enough to be strung right in among the plants without burning them, LEDs reduce site electricity consumption (and costs) per square foot of grow area by about a third compared to older technologies, such as high-pressure sodium. “Energy is a game-changer,” says Dickson Despommier, an emeritus professor of microbiology and public health at Columbia University, whose seminal 2010 book, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, is widely credited with kick-starting vertical agriculture in North America. Cost-effective LED lighting opens up the possibility of converting urban and urban-adjacent building types such as parking garages, big-box stores, and shopping malls into productive local farms, he says.
With productivity rates that are orders of magnitude greater than conventional farming, high-rise growing is gaining traction worldwide. The world’s first such system began operations in 2012 in Singapore. The land-strapped city-state, which imports about 90 percent of its food, aims to grow a third of its produce locally by 2030. Indoor vertical farms in the country now produce about 80 tons of greens a year, and the Singapore Food Agency is supporting research into and development of the method as its main bet on the future.
In China, great swaths of arable land have been lost to development (more than 30 million acres between 1997 and 2008) and 20 percent of what’s left is contaminated. At the same time, the country has a strong tradition of urban-adjacent farming. When a 247-acre agricultural site, midway between Shanghai’s main international airport and the megacity’s center, recently came up for redevelopment, global design firm Sasaki proposed that, rather than create yet another tech park, the client take its agricultural mission to the next level. As a result, the Sunqiao Urban Agricultural District is slated to become one of China’s first comprehensive national agricultural zones. Sasaki’s master plan, which has received approval from the Pudong District and is now proceeding for formal approval from the City of Shanghai, expands the district’s role in Shanghai’s food network, integrating vertical agricultural production, research, and education into a dynamic public domain. In addition to research and development facilities and an agriculture production zone, the plan provides for a civic plaza showcasing productive landscapes, a science museum, an interactive greenhouse, an aquaponics display, and a destination market. “It’s urban agriculture on steroids,” says Michael Grove, chair of landscape architecture, civil engineering, and ecology at Sasaki.
The Sunqiao project will include a civic plaza with productive landscapes (top), a science museum, and an interactive greenhouse (above), among other elements. Image courtesy Sasaki, click to enlarge.
Grove identifies three primary drivers for prioritizing urban agriculture globally: the need to curtail agricultural sprawl and thereby protect ecosystems, to reclaim economic agency by diversifying control of food production, and to build community: “Food brings us together,” he says. Behind Asia’s early adoption of urban agriculture, he sees a historic understanding among the region’s societies that the well-being of the population requires systemic support. That may also be a factor in Europe, where the Netherlands is a global leader in controlled-environment technology, and Denmark is home to the world’s latest and largest vertical farm, a partnership between a Taiwanese CEA tech company and a local start-up: with growing shelves stacked 14 deep, the 75,000-square-foot wind-powered facility has the capacity to produce 1,000 metric tons of greens a year.
A hub for teaching, research, and community engagement, located within sight of downtown Columbus and designed by Erdy McHenry Architecture, supports Ohio State’s CEA efforts. Brad Feinknopf
North America has been slower to adopt vertical farming, a lag that Ohio State’s Kubota attributes in large part to the year-round, nationwide availability of produce from California, Arizona, and Florida. But now, she says, climate disruptions and shortages of viable farmland in those states, along with the increasing urbanization of the workforce, strengthen the rationale for controlled environment agriculture. To support Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary research into CEA, a one-acre vertical greenhouse is under construction within sight of downtown Columbus. As part of the facility, the recently completed Kunz-Brundige Franklin County Extension Office serves as a hub for teaching, research, and community engagement around food, health, agricultural production, and sustainability. Both buildings are designed by Philadelphia-based Erdy McHenry Architecture.
Although still tiny, vertical farming is the fastest-growing sector in U.S. agriculture. A projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 20 percent from 2020 to 2026 is expected to bring sales to around $10 billion a year. And while significant numbers of start-ups in the capital-intensive sector have failed—as indicated by the track record of several initiatives profiled in this magazine eight years ago —experts say that’s an inevitable aspect of an emerging technology.
Among the growing number of enterprises going strong, however, is Vertical Harvest, the first vertical hydroponic greenhouse in North America. Cofounded by architect Nona Yehia, principal at GYDE Architects, the company began operations in 2016 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson is a rural town, but it performs like a city in relevant ways: 97 percent of its developable land is already in use, and, with a four-month growing season, 98 percent of its food is imported. Inspired by Despommier’s work, the need for a local food supply, and the opportunity to provide meaningful work for community members with intellectual and physical challenges, Yehia designed a three-story greenhouse for a 30-by-100-foot municipally owned lot next to a parking garage. “The town councilor who showed us the property thought we’d put up a plastic hoop structure to extend the growing season a couple of months, employ a few people, and call it a day,” recalls Yehia. But she and her business partners wanted to grow as much food as possible, to employ as many people as possible, and to do both year-round. “That’s where the idea to grow up came from,” she says.
Vertical Harvest’s three-story CEA facility in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, produces as much food on a tenth of an acre as on a 10-acre conventional farm. Photos © Vertical Harvest (1), Hannah Hardaway (2 & 3)
With a footprint of a tenth of an acre, the greenhouse produces as much food as would a 10-acre conventional farm. It employs 30 people, more than half of whom have a disability. And it’s profitable. “It would have been easier as a nonprofit,” Yehia says, “but we were committed to creating a replicable model that is not about charity: it’s about empowerment.”
After five years of operation, Vertical Harvest is ready to expand. Construction is scheduled to start this year on a second location that incorporates affordable housing and municipal parking in Westbrooke, Maine. The new 70,000-square-foot greenhouse is expected to provide the equivalent of 50 full-time jobs and to produce 1.3 million pounds of produce a year, supplying hospitals, corporate cafeterias, schools, chefs, restaurants, and caterers, as well as individual customers. “These ecosystems can put out a lot of food,” says Yehia. “Making sure you have customers who can buy at scale is as essential to success as growing plans.”
Vertical Harvest intends to build up to 15 farms in the next five years, with agreements already in place for projects in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Chicago, and discussion is underway for five other locations. Like the Wyoming and Maine projects, they will integrate social value and community engagement with their agricultural mission. “It’s the perfect intersection to show what architecture can achieve in its social role in our communities,” Yehia says. And while she has run Vertical Harvest as designer, entrepreneur, and urban farmer, it’s entirely possible for architects to advocate for urban agriculture in their more usual role as prime consultants, coordinating the work of other experts.
As CEA picks up speed, the time may not be far off when every municipality will incorporate vertical farming into its civic infrastructure, valued the way public libraries and recreation centers are. “It should be something that we all expect to see when we go to cities,” Yehia says: “infrastructure that grows food and futures, and bolsters the sustainability of the community.”
Continuing Education
To earn one AIA learning unit (LU), including one hour of health, safety, and welfare (HSW) credit, read the article above and watch this video.
Then complete the quiz. Upon passing the test, you will receive a certificate of completion, and your credit will be automatically reported to the AIA. Additional information regarding credit-reporting and continuing-education requirements can be found at continuingeducation.bnpmedia.com
Learning Objectives
Explain how conventional agricultural methods contribute to climate change.
Define terms such as urban agriculture, controlled environment agriculture (CEA), and vertical agriculture.
Describe technologies relevant to CEA, such as hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaponics.
Discuss how CEA can enhance food security and bring social value to underserved communities.
AIA/CES Course #K2104A
Lead photo: Sunqiao Urban Agricultural District has been designed by Sasaki for a site midway between Shanghai’s city center. Image courtesy Sasaki
KEYWORDS cities / climate change / urban planning
Continuing Education: Urban Agriculture
It’s been 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution gave rise to cities. Agriculture now covers more than half of the world’s habitable land, and is spreading at a rate of about 15 million acres annually
April 1, 2021
It’s been 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution gave rise to cities. Agriculture now covers more than half of the world’s habitable land, and is spreading at a rate of about 15 million acres annually. Cities, meanwhile, now comprise more than half the global population (over 80 percent in developed countries), and the numbers are rising. Using current farming methods to feed a global population expected to hit 10 billion by midcentury would require adding new farmland equal in size to the continental United States.
This alarming situation is not even factoring in the impact of the climate crisis, which is expected to alter growing seasons and disrupt the phenological cycles that keep plants and their pollinators in sync. What’s more, new agricultural land mostly comes from felling biodiverse, carbon-sequestering forests to make room for mono-crops that stash very few greenhouse gases and for livestock that actually generate them. That makes the climate crisis worse and farming more difficult.
In addition to land consumption, agriculture guzzles three-quarters of the fresh water used globally each year, while runoff from fields treated with herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers contaminates significant amounts of the water that’s left. Then there’s transportation. As farms extend farther and farther from the cities they supply, food is trucked, shipped, and flown vast distances: farm to plate, the ingredients in a typical American meal travel an average of 1,500 miles. From a security perspective, the fact that most of the world’s food production is controlled by just a handful of corporations is unnerving. And from a public health perspective, the emergence of Covid-19 and other new diseases offers yet another indicator of ecological imbalance. It’s time to rethink the way we farm.
Food security, as defined by the United Nations, means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that serves their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. Key to achieving food security in a way that’s more sustainable than current practices is urban agriculture—not as an outright replacement for rural farming, but as a crucial component in a balanced system.
Urban agriculture can take many forms: rooftop greenhouses raised beds, and community-farming initiatives such as the City of Atlanta’s “Aglanta” program, which turns underused parcels in utility rights-of-way into farm plots eligible for U.S. Department of Agriculture certificates and associated loans. Ultimately, though, horizontal strategies are not productive enough to make a real dent in the food needs of a city. (If raised beds covered every rooftop in Manhattan, the produce grown would feed only about 2 percent of the borough’s population.) Just as cities grow vertically, so too must urban agriculture, and that means bringing it indoors.
“Controlled environments have been used for many years,” says Chieri Kubota, a professor of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at Ohio State University. “Now that multiple issues are making conventional production outdoors more difficult, putting controlled environments in and near cities brings food production closer to potential markets—and also to younger generations of potential farmers who want to live in urban centers.”
Vertical agriculture is a type of CEA that—like high-rise buildings—stacks layers to provide usable area many times the footprint of the site. Instead of growing in soil, which is a heavy way to deliver nutrients, plants in vertical farms are grown hydroponically, aquaponically, or aeroponically. In hydroponics, plants are cultivated in nutrient-enriched water, which is captured and reused so that the system uses as little as a tenth of the water conventional agriculture needs. An aquaponic system pairs hydroponics with fish production, circulating the nutrients in the fish waste to feed the vegetables, and using the plants as a biofiltration system that returns clean water to the fish. Reducing water consumption even further—by as much as 98 percent, compared to field growing—aeroponic systems deliver nutrients in a fine mist to plant roots that are just hanging in the air. And because controlled environments exclude the weeds and pests that trouble field-grown produce, the use of herbicides and pesticides is all but eliminated.
Stacked plants may need to be rotated to make the most of available sunlight, which can be supplemented (or even substituted altogether) with LED grow lights. These can be calibrated to provide blue and red light in optimal doses for each type of plant, and timed to increase plant growth with extended days and growing seasons. (While it’s technically possible to grow any type of crop this way, for now it’s mainly leafy greens and tomatoes that are economically viable.) Cool enough to be strung right in among the plants without burning them, LEDs reduce site electricity consumption (and costs) per square foot of grow area by about a third compared to older technologies, such as high-pressure sodium. “Energy is a game-changer,” says Dickson Despommier, an emeritus professor of microbiology and public health at Columbia University, whose seminal 2010 book, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, is widely credited with kick-starting vertical agriculture in North America. Cost-effective LED lighting opens up the possibility of converting urban and urban-adjacent building types such as parking garages, big-box stores, and shopping malls into productive local farms, he says.
With productivity rates that are orders of magnitude greater than conventional farming, high-rise growing is gaining traction worldwide. The world’s first such system began operations in 2012 in Singapore. The land-strapped city-state, which imports about 90 percent of its food, aims to grow a third of its produce locally by 2030. Indoor vertical farms in the country now produce about 80 tons of greens a year, and the Singapore Food Agency is supporting research into and development of the method as its main bet on the future.
In China, great swaths of arable land have been lost to development (more than 30 million acres between 1997 and 2008) and 20 percent of what’s left is contaminated. At the same time, the country has a strong tradition of urban-adjacent farming. When a 247-acre agricultural site, midway between Shanghai’s main international airport and the megacity’s center, recently came up for redevelopment, global design firm Sasaki proposed that, rather than create yet another tech park, the client take its agricultural mission to the next level. As a result, the Sunqiao Urban Agricultural District is slated to become one of China’s first comprehensive national agricultural zones. Sasaki’s master plan, which has received approval from the Pudong District and is now proceeding for formal approval from the City of Shanghai, expands the district’s role in Shanghai’s food network, integrating vertical agricultural production, research, and education into a dynamic public domain. In addition to research and development facilities and an agriculture production zone, the plan provides for a civic plaza showcasing productive landscapes, a science museum, an interactive greenhouse, an aquaponics display, and a destination market. “It’s urban agriculture on steroids,” says Michael Grove, chair of landscape architecture, civil engineering, and ecology at Sasaki.
The Sunqiao project will include a civic plaza with productive landscapes (top), a science museum, and an interactive greenhouse (above), among other elements. Image courtesy Sasaki.
Grove identifies three primary drivers for prioritizing urban agriculture globally: the need to curtail agricultural sprawl and thereby protect ecosystems, to reclaim economic agency by diversifying control of food production, and to build community: “Food brings us together,” he says. Behind Asia’s early adoption of urban agriculture, he sees a historic understanding among the region’s societies that the well-being of the population requires systemic support. That may also be a factor in Europe, where the Netherlands is a global leader in controlled-environment technology, and Denmark is home to the world’s latest and largest vertical farm, a partnership between a Taiwanese CEA tech company and a local start-up: with growing shelves stacked 14 deep, the 75,000-square-foot wind-powered facility has the capacity to produce 1,000 metric tons of greens a year.
A hub for teaching, research, and community engagement, located within sight of downtown Columbus and designed by Erdy McHenry Architecture, supports Ohio State’s CEA efforts. Brad Feinknopf
North America has been slower to adopt vertical farming, a lag that Ohio State’s Kubota attributes in large part to the year-round, nationwide availability of produce from California, Arizona, and Florida. But now, she says, climate disruptions and shortages of viable farmland in those states, along with the increasing urbanization of the workforce, strengthen the rationale for controlled environment agriculture. To support Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary research into CEA, a one-acre vertical greenhouse is under construction within sight of downtown Columbus. As part of the facility, the recently completed Kunz-Brundige Franklin County Extension Office serves as a hub for teaching, research, and community engagement around food, health, agricultural production, and sustainability. Both buildings are designed by Philadelphia-based Erdy McHenry Architecture.
Although still tiny, vertical farming is the fastest-growing sector in U.S. agriculture. A projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 20 percent from 2020 to 2026 is expected to bring sales to around $10 billion a year. And while significant numbers of start-ups in the capital-intensive sector have failed—as indicated by the track record of several initiatives profiled in this magazine eight years ago —experts say that’s an inevitable aspect of an emerging technology.
Among the growing number of enterprises going strong, however, is Vertical Harvest, the first vertical hydroponic greenhouse in North America. Cofounded by architect Nona Yehia, principal at GYDE Architects, the company began operations in 2016 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson is a rural town, but it performs like a city in relevant ways: 97 percent of its developable land is already in use, and, with a four-month growing season, 98 percent of its food is imported. Inspired by Despommier’s work, the need for a local food supply, and the opportunity to provide meaningful work for community members with intellectual and physical challenges, Yehia designed a three-story greenhouse for a 30-by-100-foot municipally-owned lot next to a parking garage. “The town councilor who showed us the property thought we’d put up a plastic hoop structure to extend the growing season a couple of months, employ a few people, and call it a day,” recalls Yehia. But she and her business partners wanted to grow as much food as possible, to employ as many people as possible, and to do both year-round. “That’s where the idea to grow up came from,” she says.
Vertical Harvest’s three-story CEA facility in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, produces as much food on a tenth of an acre as on a 10-acre conventional farm. Photos © Vertical Harvest (1), Hannah Hardaway (2 & 3)
With a footprint of a tenth of an acre, the greenhouse produces as much food as would a 10-acre conventional farm. It employs 30 people, more than half of whom have a disability. And it’s profitable. “It would have been easier as a nonprofit,” Yehia says, “but we were committed to creating a replicable model that is not about charity: it’s about empowerment.”
After five years of operation, Vertical Harvest is ready to expand. Construction is scheduled to start this year on a second location that incorporates affordable housing and municipal parking in Westbrooke, Maine. The new 70,000-square-foot greenhouse is expected to provide the equivalent of 50 full-time jobs and to produce 1.3 million pounds of produce a year, supplying hospitals, corporate cafeterias, schools, chefs, restaurants, and caterers, as well as individual customers. “These ecosystems can put out a lot of food,” says Yehia. “Making sure you have customers who can buy at scale is as essential to success as growing plans.”
Vertical Harvest intends to build up to 15 farms in the next five years, with agreements already in place for projects in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Chicago, and discussion is under way for five other locations. Like the Wyoming and Maine projects, they will integrate social value and community engagement with their agricultural mission. “It’s the perfect intersection to show what architecture can achieve in its social role in our communities,” Yehia says. And while she has run Vertical Harvest as designer, entrepreneur, and urban farmer, it’s entirely possible for architects to advocate for urban agriculture in their more usual role as prime consultants, coordinating the work of other experts.
As CEA picks up speed, the time may not be far off when every municipality will incorporate vertical farming into its civic infrastructure, valued the way public libraries and recreation centers are. “It should be something that we all expect to see when we go to cities,” Yehia says: “infrastructure that grows food and futures, and bolsters the sustainability of the community.”
Continuing Education
To earn one AIA learning unit (LU), including one hour of health, safety, and welfare (HSW) credit, read the article above and watch this video.
Then complete the quiz. Upon passing the test, you will receive a certificate of completion, and your credit will be automatically reported to the AIA. Additional information regarding credit-reporting and continuing-education requirements can be found at continuingeducation.bnpmedia.com.
Learning Objectives
Explain how conventional agricultural methods contribute to climate change.
Define terms such as urban agriculture, controlled environment agriculture (CEA), and vertical agriculture.
Describe technologies relevant to CEA, such as hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaponics.
Discuss how CEA can enhance food security and bring social value to underserved communities.
AIA/CES Course #K2104A
Complete the Quiz
Lead Image: KEYWORDS cities / climate change / urban planning
Vertical Farming Startup Oishii Raises $50m In Series A Funding
“We aim to be the largest strawberry producer in the world, and this capital allows us to bring the best-tasting, healthiest berry to everyone.”
By Sian Yates
03/11/2021
Oishii, a vertical farming startup based in New Jersey, has raised $50 million during a Series A funding round led by Sparx Group’s Mirai Creation Fund II.
The funds will enable Oishii to open vertical strawberry farms in new markets, expand its flagship farm outside of Manhattan, and accelerate its investment in R&D.
“Our mission is to change the way we grow food. We set out to deliver exceptionally delicious and sustainable produce,” said Oishii CEO Hiroki Koga. “We started with the strawberry – a fruit that routinely tops the dirty dozen of most pesticide-riddled crops – as it has long been considered the ‘holy grail’ of vertical farming.”
“We aim to be the largest strawberry producer in the world, and this capital allows us to bring the best-tasting, healthiest berry to everyone. From there, we’ll quickly expand into new fruits and produce,” he added.
Oishii is already known for its innovative farming techniques that have enabled the company to “perfect the strawberry,” while its proprietary and first-of-its-kind pollination method is conducted naturally with bees.
The company’s vertical farms feature zero pesticides and produce ripe fruit all year round, using less water and land than traditional agricultural methods.
“Oishii is the farm of the future,” said Sparx Group president and Group CEO Shuhei Abe. “The cultivation and pollination techniques the company has developed set them well apart from the industry, positioning Oishii to quickly revolutionise agriculture as we know it.”
The company has raised a total of $55 million since its founding in 2016.
Underground Agriculture In London Is Gearing Up
By 2022, Growing Underground aims to produce 60 metric tons of vegetables across an area of 528 square meters. That should be enough for 10,000 households and is 12x more than what is produced on a regular farm
Growing Underground In London Is One
of The Largest Underground Vertical Farms
In the World That is Controlled Entirely
By A Digital Twin At The University of Cambridge.
29 March 2021
All the good things an old World War II bunker can bring, right? Thirty meters below ground, near the London New Covent Garden food market, two entrepreneurs have been working together for several years with the British University of Cambridge on an underground farm that has great ambitions.
Their intention is not only to significantly increase production on-site over the coming years. The project also serves as an example for the whole world, according to co-founder Richard Ballard,
By 2022, Growing Underground aims to produce 60 metric tons of vegetables across an area of 528 square meters. That should be enough for 10,000 households and is 12x more than what is produced on a regular farm.
Energy and water
Vegetable cultivation takes place without soil, as the plants thrive on a kind of ‘woolen carpet’ that uses very little water. “70% less than on a conventional farm,” claims Growing Underground. Energy consumption is also low due to the great depth – which ensures few temperature fluctuations – and thanks to the energy-efficient LED lighting.
Nevertheless, energy is the one thing that still stands in the way of a global breakthrough. Ballard: “Vertical agriculture is on the verge of exponential growth due to ever-improving LED technology, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and wireless sensors. But the really big breakthrough will come once more and cheaper renewable energy becomes available that can also be stored.”
Ballard believes vertical agriculture can make a significant contribution to the food problem we undoubtedly have in store as a result of an ever- growing global population. For a techie, the fun part is that it also requires a lot of high-end sensor technology.
Melanie Jans-Singh
A digital twin
There are 25 sensors in the underground farm that constantly track how the plants are doing. E.g., whether something needs to be done with the amount of CO2 in the air, nutrients, temperature, humidity and light. In total, 89 variables are involved. Even the speed at which the plants grow is measured, says researcher Melanie Jans-Singh from the University of Cambridge.
Jans-Singh: “The digital twin provides us with a 3D representation of the situation in London here in Cambridge. That image is even better than if you were there on site yourself. The digital twin can do much more than a human being. It can monitor, learn, give feedback and make predictions. All factors that will help increase productivity.”
A great deal of research into vertical farming is also being done in the Netherlands, such as by the company Plantlab.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maurits Kuypers graduated as a macroeconomist from the University of Amsterdam, specializing in international work. He has been active as a journalist since 1997, first for 10 years on the editorial staff of Het Financieele Dagblad in Amsterdam, then as a freelance correspondent in Berlin and Central Europe. When it comes to technological innovations, he always has an eye for the financial feasibility of a project.
Introducing Low-Cost Farming Models To The Philippines
“I am convinced that we found a system that works perfectly here for the local climate conditions, with minimal cost of electricity and well suited for the skill level of the labor force, whilst delivering the highest quality produce
Through Local Sourcing
And The Use of Natural Resources
The Philippines is one of the greatest exporter of coconuts, mangoes, and pineapples worldwide, it is quite a surprise that a large number of vegetables are imported from surrounding countries. “Fresh herbs and leafy greens, in particular as they’re much more expensive here and low-quality,” says Ralph Becker, CEO and founder of Urban Greens. “Our climate is not ideal for some specific vegetable cultivation because of the extreme heat, torrential typhoons and other natural disasters. However, there is growing awareness regarding a healthy lifestyle, whereas the demand for vegetables is increasing noticeably.”
After spending a decade in corporate technology with Sony Electronics, Ralph Becker decided to shift his focus. “When I left the shelter of corporate life and moved back to the Philippines, I noticed that lots of food was imported. It made me think whether that could be done more efficiently with a smaller carbon foodprint and eventually better food quality.”
Ralph Becker
Sourcing locally
Hydroponic material and equipment is easily obtainable in most western countries but less so in the Philippines and particularly when he started his venturesome 4 years ago, which is why Ralph and his team designed everything themselves from the ground up.
“I am convinced that we found a system that works perfectly here for the local climate conditions, with minimal cost of electricity and well suited for the skill level of the labor force, whilst delivering the highest quality produce. One of the benefits for us is that the equipment can easily be repaired from parts available in a local hardware shop, for instance.
Contrary to other players who brought in technology from abroad that was not particularly designed for these temperature and humidity conditions, such as container farms which heat up in this tropical climate and take a lot of electricity to cool down – cost that has to be recovered on a slim profit margin to start with. We have our own technology and we’re able to scale it, without having to rely on outside technology.”
The new warehouse
With the brand-new warehouse farm right in the city center, the company will soon be delivering more than 1,5 tons of fresh produce per month. “Everything we’ve learned thus far in previous smaller units is now replicated in our new farms implementing the same model. The Philippines is a big country with many cities that rely quite heavily on imports, which is the main market we want to target,” says Ralph.
Ralph had always been interested in plant growing ever since being exposed to hydroponic farming in Japan and the US. Once he relocated to the Philippines he started doing some experiments with growing herbs. Posting about his project on social media many people reached out as they wanted him to grow for them too. Ralph says that restaurants and hotels were eager to validate the demand of high-quality local produce.
Pilot model
Urban Greens is building the new warehouse farm with a bigger purpose in mind, namely, as a pilot model for more farms. People interested in the vertical farming space can come and visit the farm. Ralph adds, “We want to inspire visitors by showing the possibilities of these new farming models. After all, we need young farmers to come into the industry. The younger generation isn’t that interested in farming because of the hard labor and low wages. We want to prove them wrong by showing that farming can be lucrative and modern too.”
Apart from cost-effectiveness, reliability is one of Urban Greens’ greatest assets. “Consistency of supply gets easily interrupted due to tropical storms, which is both bad for the farmer and for those who rely on it. Reducing food miles is of essential importance to food availability,” Ralph states. This also happened during COVID, when many supply chains were cut and the company noticed a strong increase in demand. “We turned hardship into an opportunity,” says Ralph. “Once we’ve finished up this warehouse farm in the heart of Makati, people will see that vertical farming can be viable in the Philippines. This country has 7000 islands, and I think each of them is in need of an Urban Greens farm.”
For more information:
Ralph Becker, CEO
Urban Greens
ralph@eaturbangreens.com
www.eaturbangreens.com
Publication date: Mon 29 Mar 2021
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
SINGAPORE: New Guidelines For Local Farms To Ensure Produce Is Safe, Sustainable
The guidelines are meant to assure consumers that produce from local vegetable farms is fresh, free from synthetic pesticides, and grown sustainably
The guidelines are meant to assure consumers that produce
from local vegetable farms are fresh, free from synthetic
pesticides, and grown sustainably
March 25, 2021
SINGAPORE - New guidelines to help local farms ensure the production of clean and green local produce were launched on Thursday (March 25).
They are meant to assure consumers that produce from local vegetable farms is fresh, free from synthetic pesticides, and grown sustainably - with efficient use of resources and without compromising the environment.
"SS 661: Specification for Clean and Green Urban Farms - Agriculture", the standard including the guidelines, was launched by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) together with Enterprise Singapore, the Singapore Manufacturing Federation - Standards Development Organisation, and Republic Polytechnic (RP).
It contains criteria that urban vegetable farms have to meet in terms of farm management, techniques, and practices to achieve a clean and green production system.
A clean farm production system refers to one that does not use pollutive farm inputs, such as synthetic pesticides, and does not leave behind undesirable residue for consumers and the environment.
A green farm production system ensures the efficient use of farm inputs and natural resources, the recycling of farm waste to minimize the impact on the environment and ecosystem, as well as the optimization of farm production.
The criteria include minimum competency requirements for farm employees, plans for the responsible management of resources, green procurement practices and farm operations, as well as procedures for handling customer complaints, farm product recalls and conducting internal audits.
The standard will also help vegetable farms adopt smart farming techniques and practices to reduce wastage of resources, incorporate circularity in their resource management, and optimize operational efficiency.
Dr. Tan Lee Kim, SFA director-general of food administration and deputy chief executive, said these guidelines are timely, given the increasing challenges from climate change.
"(Climate change) can put a strain on food supply chains, including our local food production... The standard will be critical in ensuring our local farms employ farming practices that make efficient use of our resources to grow more in land-scarce Singapore and are sustainable in the long run," Dr. Tan said.
"As a result, local urban farms will be recognized for producing safe, quality food, using resource-efficient practices in a clean and sustainable environment. This will allow us to differentiate and brand local produce, further strengthening Singapore's reputation for quality produce as we work towards achieving our '30 by 30' goal."
The "30 by 30" goal is for Singapore to produce 30 percent of its nutritional needs locally by 2030.
The SFA will work with local farmers and industry players to promote and raise awareness of the standard.
RP will also launch a three-day training course from April to assist farms in adopting the standard.
Lead photo: by LIANHE ZAOBAO: The guidelines are meant to assure consumers that produce from local vegetable farms is fresh, free from synthetic pesticides, and grown sustainably.
This Vertical Farming System Was Designed To Build Up Community And Accommodate The Urban Lifestyle!
Urban farming takes different shapes in different cities. Some cities can accommodate thriving backyard gardens for produce, some take to hydroponics for growing plants, and then some might keep their gardens on rooftops
03/19/2021
Following interviews with local residents, Andersson set out to create a farming system that works for the city’s green-thumb community.
Urban farming takes different shapes in different cities. Some cities can accommodate thriving backyard gardens for produce, some take to hydroponics for growing plants, and then some might keep their gardens on rooftops. In Malmö, small-scale farming initiatives are growing in size and Jacob Alm Andersson has designed his own vertical farming system called Nivå, directly inspired by his community and the local narratives of Malmö’s urban farmers.
Through interviews, Andersson learned that most farmers in Malmö began farming after feeling inspired by their neighbors, who also grew their own produce. Noticing the cyclical nature of community farming, Andersson set out to create a more focused space where that cyclical inspiration could flourish and where younger generations could learn about city farming along with the importance of sustainability.
Speaking more to this, Andersson notes, “People need to feel able and motivated to grow food. A communal solution where neighbors can share ideas, inspire and help one another is one way to introduce spaces that will create long-lasting motivation to grow food.”
Since most cities have limited space available, Andersson had to get creative in designing his small-scale urban farming system in Malmö. He found that for an urban farm to be successful in Malmö, the design had to be adaptable and operable on a vertical plane– it all came down to the build of Nivå.
Inspired by the local architecture of Malmö, Andersson constructed each system by stacking steel beams together to create shelves and then reinforced those with wooden beams, providing plenty of stability. Deciding against the use of screws, Nivå’s deep, heat-treated pine planters latch onto the steel beams using a hook and latch method. Ultimately, Nivå’s final form is a type of urban farming workstation, even including a center workbench ideal for activities like chopping produce or pruning crops.
Taking inspiration from community gardens and the local residents’ needs, Andersson found communal inspiration in Malmö.
Backyard and patio gardens are popular options for those living in cities who’d still like to have their very own gardening space.
Lead photo: Designer: Jacob Alm Andersson.