Indoor Farming Company With Backing From Ubben Aims to Solve The Problems With America’s Produce

Image from: AppHarvest

Company: AppHarvest Inc. (APPH)

The agriculture technology company focuses on building an indoor farm in Appalachia. The company combines agricultural techniques with cutting-edge technology and including access for all to nutritious food, farming, and building a homegrown food supply. The company operates a 60-acre controlled environment, agriculture facility in Morehead, Kentucky, which grows juicy beefsteak tomatoes and tomatoes on the vine. It also operates a 60-acre indoor farm, outside Richmond, Kentucky, where it cultivates fresh fruits and veggies.

The company’s technological systems monitor the pollination across all 68 bays and 684 rows of plants. AppHarvest is only the fourth U.S. public Certified B corporation. A B corporation is a company that has (1) achieved a high standard of social and environmental performance as measured by the B Impact Assessment, (2) verified their scores through transparency requirements, and (3) made a legal commitment to consider all stakeholders, not just shareholders. Any company can apply to be one.

Stock Market Value: $3.3 billion ($33.26 per share)

Image from: CNBC

Activist:

Inclusive Capital

Percentage Ownership:  

12.05%

Average Cost: 

n/a

Activist Commentary: 

Inclusive Capital Partners was formed in 2020 by ValueAct founder Jeff Ubben, to leverage capitalism and governance in pursuit of a healthy planet and the health of its inhabitants. The firm seeks long-term shareholder value through active partnership with companies whose core businesses contribute solutions to this pursuit. Inclusive is a returns driven fund with a focus on environmental and social investing.

Their primary focus is on environmental and social value creation, which leads to shareholder value creation. It is the successor to the ValueAct Spring Fund, which was launched in January 2018 and merged into Inclusive in 2020.

Inclusive is building a huge network and has accessed experts in industries such as energy, electrification, water, agriculture, food production, particulates, education and human rights. Just like ValueAct’s constructive, patient investment style, Inclusive will seek to earn the trust of managers, board members and institutional investors.

Jeff Ubben serves as the portfolio manager and Eva Zlotnicka serves as vice president. Eva has a pre-existing relationship with ValueAct through their interactions with Morgan Stanley, where she served as a VP and U.S. lead for the Global Sustainability Research Team. At Morgan Stanley, she worked to help address and raise awareness of environmental and social issues both inside and outside of corporations.

What’s Happening:

Jeff Ubben was appointed to the company’s Board in connection with the company’s business combination with Novus Capital.

Behind the Scenes:

This was initially an investment of ValueAct Spring Fund, which was converted into Inclusive Capital in 2020. Jeff Ubben first met AppHarvest founder Jonathan Webb in 2017 and has been involved with the company since the 2018 Series A round, working with Webb to put the management team together and develop a strong balance sheet. The company went public on February 1, 2021 through a $100 million SPAC transaction and a $375 million PIPE investment. Jeff Ubben is on the board where he can continue to help the company execute.

AppHarvest plans on having 12 facilities by 2025. The goal here is to make Kentucky the Netherlands of North America. The Netherlands (at 16,000 square miles) is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world, using greenhouse technology to feed two-thirds of all of Europe. In comparison, the state of Kentucky is 40,000 square miles and the US is 3.8 million square miles. AppHarvest’s motivation is first and foremost to benefit society, but if successful would have extraordinary financial returns as well.

As of 2018, 69% of fresh vine crops in the U.S. were imported, mostly from Mexico. These crops are pesticide-laden and grown using labor practices not up to U.S. standards. Moreover, they sit at the border for days and are driven 2,000+ miles to their destination, using tons of diesel fuel and resulting in less fresh produce. AppHarvest produces crops with no pesticides with greater nutrient density, and from their central location can reach 70% of the U.S. population in one day resulting in 80% less diesel fuel and much lower emissions. However, the larger environmental and economic benefit is in how the crops are grown — using 90% less water and yielding thirty times more per acre. 

Moreover, AppHarvest’s resources are nature based – the greenhouse structure allows them to use 12 hours of sunlight per day and they collect the heavy Kentucky rainfall for their system resulting in a much less adverse effect on the water supply while greatly decreasing their cost of production by not having to pay for water. The greenhouse system also eliminates any weather or seasonal constraints, allowing the company to grow more efficiently 365 days per year.

While the company has no historic revenue, they just made their first delivery of beefsteak tomatoes on January 19, 2021, to customers that include Walmart, Kroger and Publix

Yasai To Establish First Zürich Vertical Farm, Strategic Partnership Announced

Image from: Urban Ag News

iFarm with Yasai AG (Switzerland) and Logiqs B.V. (Netherlands) are proud to announce the beginning of a long-term cooperation.  

With the launch of the first vertical farm project in Zurich, Yasai AG announced the signing of a strategic agreement with equipment and tech suppliers. The company involved Logiqs and iFarm as technology partners in the construction of a pilot facility, with 673 sq. m of growing area and with a design capacity of 20 tons of fresh herbs per year.  

The Dutch company Logiqs will act as a supplier of automated shelving systems and grow lights. iFarm will supply the nutrient solution management system, climate control equipment, and the Growtune software platform which enables flow chart implementation and control over production conditions and processes. Going forward, the partners plan to scale up the experience of rapidly constructing an automated, compact, high-performance vertical farm, gained in a Swiss project, across the globe.

Image from: Urban Ag News

Mark Essam Zahran (co-founder Yasai):

The project will not just be limited to the testing and fine-tuning of state-of-the-art innovative solutions.  We expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale industrial vertical farming in smart cities and showcase the incredible benefits of a circular economy. A plantation in the largest Swiss city, one of the most expensive cities in the world, will help us assess the economic prospects and give other European cities an example of how to produce an abundant yield without harming the planet, plants, and people.

Gert-Jan van Staalduinen (owner Logiqs):

The Swiss project opens up interesting prospects for us. We expect a fruitful collaboration with Yasai experts and a beneficial exchange of best practices with iFarm. With our vast experience in implementing automation and logistics systems on farms, we will be able to build a technologically advanced farm in the very heart of Europe. 

Kirill Zelenski (CEO iFarm Europe):

We appreciate how meticulous and scrupulous Yasai is and are impressed by their passion and drive. We are just as inspired by the prospect of working with seasoned professionals from Logiqs. We hope that our software technologies will perfectly complement their hardware and the project as a whole will become a lasting benchmark for the industry and will serve as the beginning of a long-term cooperation.  

VIDEO: Freight Farms - Greenery Tour Recording

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If you have any unanswered questions or would like to discuss your individual project, please reach out to your Account Executive  rick@freightfarms.com, and they will be able to assist you

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Freight Farms, 46 Plympton St, Boston, MA 02118, US, 877-687-4326

Bringing The Future To life In Abu Dhabi

Amid the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators are sowing the seeds of a more sustainable future.

Image from: Wired

A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture. 

Madar Farms is one of a number of agtech startups benefitting from a package of incentives from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) aimed at spurring the development of innovative solutions for sustainable desert farming. The partnership is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Programme dedicated to supporting companies in high-growth areas.

“Abu Dhabi is pressing ahead with our mission to ‘turn the desert green’,” explained H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, in November 2020. “We have created an environment where innovative ideas can flourish and the companies we partnered with earlier this year are already propelling the growth of Abu Dhabi’s 24,000 farms.”

The pandemic has made food supply a critical concern across the entire world, combined with the effects of population growth and climate change, which are stretching the capacity of less efficient traditional farming methods. Abu Dhabi’s pioneering efforts to drive agricultural innovation have been gathering pace and look set to produce cutting-edge solutions addressing food security challenges.

Beyond work supporting the application of novel agricultural technologies, Abu Dhabi is also investing in foundational research and development to tackle this growing problem. 

In December, the emirate’s recently created Advanced Technology Research Council [ATRC], responsible for defining Abu Dhabi’s R&D strategy and establishing the emirate and the wider UAE as a desired home for advanced technology talent, announced a four-year competition with a $15 million prize for food security research. Launched through ATRC’s project management arm, ASPIRE, in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the award will support the development of environmentally-friendly protein alternatives with the aim to "feed the next billion".

Image from: Madar Farms

Global Challenges, Local Solutions

Food security is far from the only global challenge on the emirate’s R&D menu. In November 2020, the ATRC announced the launch of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), created to support applied research on the key priorities of quantum research, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy and secure systems.

“The technologies under development at TII are not randomly selected,” explains the centre’s secretary general Faisal Al Bannai. “This research will complement fields that are of national importance. Quantum technologies and cryptography are crucial for protecting critical infrastructure, for example, while directed energy research has use-cases in healthcare. But beyond this, the technologies and research of TII will have global impact.”

Future research directions will be developed by the ATRC’s ASPIRE pillar, in collaboration with stakeholders from across a diverse range of industry sectors.

“ASPIRE defines the problem, sets milestones, and monitors the progress of the projects,” Al Bannai says. “It will also make impactful decisions related to the selection of research partners and the allocation of funding, to ensure that their R&D priorities align with Abu Dhabi and the UAE's broader development goals.”

Image from: Agritecture

Nurturing Next-Generation Talent

To address these challenges, ATRC’s first initiative is a talent development programme, NexTech, which has begun the recruitment of 125 local researchers, who will work across 31 projects in collaboration with 23 world-leading research centres.

Alongside universities and research institutes from across the US, the UK, Europe and South America, these partners include Abu Dhabi’s own Khalifa University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first graduate-level institute focused on artificial intelligence. 

“Our aim is to up skill the researchers by allowing them to work across various disciplines in collaboration with world-renowned experts,” Al Bannai says. 

Beyond academic collaborators, TII is also working with a number of industry partners, such as hyperloop technology company, Virgin Hyperloop. Such industry collaborations, Al Bannai points out, are essential to ensuring that TII research directly tackles relevant problems and has a smooth path to commercial impact in order to fuel job creation across the UAE.

“By engaging with top global talent, universities and research institutions and industry players, TII connects an intellectual community,” he says. “This reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge-based economy.”

US - OHIO: Thinking And Growing Inside The Box

A brother-sister team has taken the mechanics of farming out of the field and into a freight container.

“We are growing beautiful plants without the sun; there’s no soil, and so it’s all a closed-loop water system,” Britt Decker, co-owner of Fifth Season FARM, said. “We use non-GMO seeds, completely free of herbicides and pesticides, so the product is really, really clean. In fact, we recommend people don’t even wash it, because there’s no reason to.”

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Fifth Season FARM is unique in many ways; the 3-acre hydroponic farm is contained in a 320-square-foot freight container that sits along 120 S. Main St. in Piqua, with everything from varying varities of lettuce, to radishes, to kale and even flowers in a climate-controlled smart farm that allows Decker and his sister, Laura Jackson, to turn crops in a six- to eight-week cycle. The crops spend 18 hours in “daytime” every day, and the farm uses 90% less water than traditional farming.

“It’s tricky because we’re completely controlling the environment in here. It’s kind of a laboratory more than a farm,” Decker said. “I think there’s about 50 of them around the world right now. These are really international, and they’re perfect for places that are food deserts where they can’t grow food because of climate or other reasons. It gives them a way to grow food in the middle of nowhere.”

Image from: Sidney Daily News

Decker and Jackson, along with their brother Bill Decker, also do traditional farming and grow corn, wheat and soybeans, but Decker said they were looking for a new venture that would help lead them to a healthier lifestyle and learn something new.

“Just with the whole local food movement becoming more and more important and food traceability, we just thought it would be a great thing to bring to our community to help everyone have a healthier lifestyle,” Decker said. “People love food that’s grown right in their hometown and the shelf-life on it, when you get it home, is remarkable. It’ll keep for two weeks.”

Image from: AgFunder News

Currently, Decker and Jackson are growing a half-dozen variety of specialty lettuces that include arugula, butterhead and romaine, as well as specialty greens like kale and Swiss chard, and even radishes and flowers. They received their freight container at the end of July and set up their indoor farm over two weeks; while the farm has been in operation for less than six months, Decker says that they’re growing beautiful product.

They have also started growing micro-greens, said Decker. Micro-greens are immature plants which are 1 to 3 inches tall and are in a 5-inch by 5-inch container.

“People will use them as garnishments and in smoothies,” said Decker. “Since they are immature plants, they have an intense flavor.”

Decker said they are growing wheat germ, broccoli and spicy salad mixes.

They’ve also started moving forward with sales and marketing. Fifth Season FARM has partnered with the Miami County Locally Grown Virtual Market to sell their products to the community. They also take orders through their website, customers can opt to pick up their orders between 4 and 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, or Decker and Jackson will deliver products up to five miles from the farm. Decker said that Fifth Season FARM is also in discussions with three restaurants in the area about including their specialty greens on their menus.

Decker said they also plan to attend the Sidney Farmers Market when it opens for the spring/summer season.

“We’re really just getting going,” Decker said. “While we were learning to grow products, we didn’t want to overcommit to a restaurant or grocery store before we knew we could really grow beautiful product, so we’ve been donating product every week to the food pantry at the Presbyterian Church. It feels good to plant the seeds and watch them grow, and it feels good to make sure that people who aren’t getting the proper nutrition are getting some.”

Democratic Mayoral Candidates Offer Ideas for Addressing Food Insecurity

Image from: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

Nine candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to become the next mayor of New York City gathered Tuesday morning in a virtual forum to discuss their visions for the city's food policy and serving the roughly 2 million New Yorkers who are food insecure.

At the "Town Hall on the Future of Food in New York City" -- hosted by Hunter College in partnership with City Harvest, CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, Food Bank for NYC, Hunger Free America, and other organizations, and moderated by NY1 anchor Errol Louis -- the candidates discussed the city's urgent need to manage rampant hunger during the pandemic and center it in the recovery effort. But the discussion also focused on the pre-existing problems of food insecurity, inequitable access to nutritious meals, and inefficiencies and lack of sustainability in the city's food use.

The participants, who were selected based on their polling and fundraising standings among a field of dozens of candidates, included Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former federal housing secretary Shaun Donovan, former city sanitation commissioner and "covid food czar" Kathryn Garcia, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, former city veterans' services commissioner Loree Sutton, city Comptroller Scott Stringer, small business owner Joycelyn Taylor, and Maya Wiley, a civil rights attorney and former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Louis pushed them to focus on how they would bring anti-hunger initiatives to scale to address the food crisis compounded by the pandemic.

Programs to help feed New Yorkers have often missed the mark, failing to meet adequate health standards and leaving many New Yorkers out entirely. A 2017 study from the Robin Hood Poverty Tracker found 1 in 4 eligible food stamp, or SNAP, recipients -- 700,000 New York City residents -- were not enrolled in the program, less than the statewide participation rate of 93 percent the same year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In September, the Poverty Tracker reporter 1.7 million New Yorkers were getting food stamps, over 200,000 more than last February. During roughly the same period the percentage of food stamp recipients who also used a food pantry doubled, from 27 percent of enrollees to 60 percent.

Nearly all candidates agreed on the need to increase SNAP benefits, and improve enrollment in the program; expand community gardens and urban agriculture; and improve access to nutritious food throughout communities and in institutional settings like schools and food pantries. There was also broad consensus around creating a more unified food procurement and distribution system in New York City by strengthening the Mayor's Office of Food Policy. Multiple candidates highlighted the frequent lack of coordination among the myriad city agencies that provide food as part of their services.

"One of the reasons why I needed to step in is that the Mayor's Office of Food Policy is incredibly understaffed," said Garcia, who managed the city's emergency food response last summer before leaving the de Blasio administration last fall and launching her campaign to succeed him.

"[Food Policy Director] Kate McKenzie does an amazing job but she doesn't have procurement authority, she doesn't have logistical authority...one of the clear things is how we approach food is very siloed, very fragmented," Garcia said, noting the separate food procurement activities of the Department of Education, Department of Correction, and senior centers. Garcia says the city provided 1 million meals a day and shored up food pantries last summer under her leadership. (Shortly after the forum, Garcia released a multi-pronged platform to fight food insecurity with an emphasis on enrolling more New Yorkers in SNAP and expanding what the benefits would cover.) 

Adams, who repeatedly discussed the need for nutritious food, criticized the nutritional value of many of the government-provided or -supported food services, including Garcia’s covid effort, and said increasing the size of the Mayor's Office of Food Policy would have a limited impact if the city did not also incorporate the new perspectives from food-access "visionaries."

"They don't share the values," Adams said of the city's food-oriented bureaucrats, historically. "I am amazed at the roadblocks, that organizations like Rockaway Youth Task Force are not able to scale," he said during a segment of the conversation on urban agriculture programs. 

Some of the candidates saw the city's food dilemmas rooted in job scarcity and low wages and frequently discussed the importance of building food policy into the city's economic recovery.

"We solve none of this if we don't recognize that fundamentally what is broken and why 30% of our people were not eating through the month before covid is because the rent was too damn high and people were choosing to pay rent instead of buying groceries," Wiley said, adding, "at the end of the day it is about the city's ability to generate new jobs." Wiley has announced a plan as mayor to create 100,000 jobs through a $10 billion capital investment and cited it as an example of how she would leverage existing city resources to bring her approach to scale.

"Fundamentally, food insecurity is about income and it is about the fact that we do not intentionally ensure that our young people have pathways to careers and are prepared for the careers of the 21st Century," said Garcia.

The conversation of workforce development dovetailed with another on building an urban agrarian economy in New York to create good jobs and ensure both sustainable and equitable food access for city residents.

"We need to also think about aligning not just food policy, but the resilience office that exists right now to work more in tandem with each other because we know that food justice is also climate justice," said Morales, who was the executive director of Phipps Neighborhoods in the South Bronx, a social services provider. As mayor, Morales said she would invest $25 million to food innovation and sustainability programs in communities of color.

Multiple candidates, including Stringer, Donovan, and Adams wanted to see a greater emphasis on local and regional food procurement. "If I'm mayor, I really want to create a Mayor's Office of Food Markets because we've got to link farming with communities and for a farm-to-table policy that brings the purchasing power of this city regionally, upstate, downstate, and create those relationships," Stringer said. "Farmers markets should be everywhere."

Image from: Square Roots

"There is huge potential to grow, so to speak, the power of locally-grown produce," said Donovan, who was the city’s housing commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg before spending all eight years in the Obama presidential cabinet. "We need innovative approaches to ensure we are using every inch of available space that we can." Like other candidates, he expressed support for ideas like more community gardens and vertical agriculture. Donovan also repeatedly stressed the need to support struggling restaurants and incorporate them into the city's food programs as well as its economic recovery.

While supportive of partnerships with upstate and Long Island counties, Garcia took issue with the notion that New York could achieve a sustainable food market locally. "If we want fresh, healthy food day in and day out, we're not harvesting today in this region, we are going to have to bring it in," she said following Donovan's comments. "We need to make sure the systems go beyond just this region so that we can still be getting lettuce even though it's February."

"That should not hold us back from starting to have a robust agrarian economy in New York City," Adams countered, echoing Donovan's statements about the importance of life sciences in city schools and connecting lessons about food production to healthy eating.

When asked directly whether they would use the city's power of eminent domain to force the sale of private land for the city to use, most candidates raised their hands affirmatively. Adams expressed his dissent, noting that the many existing city resources that he said are being wasted or under-utilized should be tapped before forcing land sales. (Others also raised the importance of better using available land, with Stringer naming a report he issued as comptroller on the number of vacant city-owned lots that could be used to develop housing and noting that many lots could also be used for community gardens.)

McGuire, who recently stepped down from one of the biggest jobs on Wall Street to run for mayor, also criticized the mismanagement of city resources and cautioned on the costs to the city that eminent domain could pose. "It gets expensive so you have to figure out when you exercise eminent domain at market rates who is going to pay for it," he said.

Equity was an overriding theme in a number of areas of the food policy discussion, from eradicating food deserts to ensuring healthy options in schools and pantries.

"I think we do have a moral obligation to ensure that every resident of the city has those basic needs of food and housing," said Taylor, who created the nonprofit NYC WMBE Alliance, according to her website. "We have to make sure that when we look at the budget we look things that are 'nice to have' and things that are 'needs to have,' and if it means that we have to reallocate funds from the things that are nice to have to the needs, then that's what I would do."

"We need to stop leaving communities out of the co-creation process," said Morales, who stressed participation of food advocacy groups.

Wiley and Taylor also discussed the need for community participation in the form of locally-based food councils to inform nutrition, per Wiley, and more active mayoral outposts in each borough, per Taylor. Both also discussed the importance of collecting more targeted data to better determine the outcomes of food programs. Other candidates outlined plans or past work to incorporate cultural sensitivity into food access, including then-Manhattan Borough President Stringer's 2008 "Go Green East Harlem Cookbook" and Garcia's discussion of halal and kosher options in meal services, something others mentioned as well.

The candidates agreed that compounded structural problems of food deserts and the reliance of low-income communities on the city's various food programs exacerbate malnutrition and health outcomes, but not all offered the same solution.

"Today food deserts are such that many of our people don't have access to healthy food. They have access to those institutions that provide food that is pretty low on the nutrition scale," McGuire said. He laid out a more corporate-friendly view of the path forward, that involved rezoning to allow big supermarket chains, hiring gig workers to deliver meals to seniors, and bringing refrigeration resources to bodegas in order to better store fresh produce.

As is often the case, Morales was at the other end of the spectrum, saying she supports community land trusts to create both better access to fresh produce and greater "food sovereignty" in poor communities. Sutton said the solution was to leverage public-private partnerships.

"It's one thing to talk about all these ideas, but in the same breath to disdain, disparage and disrespect the top 1 percent of New Yorkers who bring in nearly 40 percent of our tax base or reject and shun real estate as one example, as a number of my fellow candidate have during this campaign," said Sutton, a former Army psychiatrist who led de Blasio's Department of Veterans' Services. "We are absolutely shutting down those pathways to partnership and prosperity."

Recycling Solar Energy for Indoor Farming Use

New patented technology that recycles renewable energy is ready to revolutionize CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture) and make indoor farming both more profitable and more attainable in remote rural areas. This upgrade in solar technology offers benefits for farmers, consumers, businesses, environmentalists and local governments.

Two businesses are building a prototype of the vertical farm of the future in Marquette, Kansas (pop. 620.) The indoor farm will recycle its own solar energy at night and during storms by absorbing LED light energy when it’s used to illuminate the interior growing spaces. The 60-unit, 11-acre prototype development will function independently of the local power grid using technology designed and built by Kansas native David Hinson, CTO of TSO Greenhouses.

Image from: Hortidaily

This technology will reduce burdensome costs of power, water, financing, real estate acquisitions, and property taxes. Such hurdles have often been the downfall of previous vertical farms, especially in urban areas. The forward-thinking pair’s plan addresses and solves all of these challenges.

The duo’s “ag tech campus” model includes accelerated growing of all-natural, clean food and protein fodder as well as reliable 5G internet for rural farmers, citizens and businesses. The entire system will be powered by renewable energy and make digital telecom deployment more practical.

Image from: Hortidaily

Hinson’s technology enables roof-mounted “solar trackers” to capture LED energy at night from the light reflected inside the structures that house hydroponic crops growing inside. These trackers rotate East to West when the sun is shining and then flip inward at night and during bad weather.

As a result, farmers can harness the energy generated “off-hours” to grow a variety of crops 24 hours a day in multiple vertical “stacks” based on bespoke microclimates. Growing by “zones” inside a multi-level structure boosts crop production and horticulture flexibility.  Traditional indoor farms and rudimentary greenhouses usually grow only 1-2 crops for local distribution.

In contrast, these new farms will be able to produce 10-15 different plant species simultaneously. Increased agility and production speed will also improve vertical farmers' ability to react to sudden demand shifts.

Image from: Hortidaily

5G Adds Lucrative Tech Payoff to Growth Cycle
Since the new 24/7/365 solar energy recycling technology only needs 33 percent to 40 percent of the harnessed energy, developers and farmers can sell excess energy for additional revenue. The local clean energy will power wireless 5G with the help of small rotating solar trackers with batteries. These trackers can be placed on community buildings, water towers, grain elevators, farm silos, bridge spans, existing cell towers and other permanent objects to ensure uptime and reliability. 

This new source of 5G will create emerging markets for renewable energy, boosting rural economies. In the past, 5G telecom has been difficult to install and deploy in remote areas.

Path Diversity will be a game-changer
The pair plan to locate data centers near 100GB digital fiber trunks to further reduce the cost and time required to deploy 5G wireless. High-end data processing groups pay premium rates for 5G, which is rated as Tier 5 (aka T5 or always-on) based on its reliability. T5 is far less subject to outages and service disruptions.

Such state-of-the-art data centers are expected to attract the largest data processing groups in the world based on their enhanced functionality and amenities. This market also provides another lucrative revenue stream for farmers and tax-equity entrepreneurs interested in sustainability.   

Investors Can Support Sustainability with “free money”
Freedom Farms CEO Geist and TSO Greenhouses Hinson have already raised nearly half a million dollars for Phase One, which will be the prototype of the vertical farming headquarters. They’re seeking an additional $2.5 million to finish the prototype by summer 2021.

Phase Two will be devoted to building 12 larger campuses that will fan out statewide from the headquarters in McPherson, Kansas. The entire $2 billion hub-and-spoke sustainability system is targeted for completion by 2030. Yields are expected to feed nearly 3 million residents statewide including many school lunch programs. Local hospitals, restaurants, colleges, universities, assisted living centers and public agencies are expected to become customers of the same-day harvests.

Investors will be able to reap these profits without ever risking their own money. Thanks to little-known U.S tax credit programs and clean-energy incentives, these projects don’t require a cash infusion. VC firms can "pool" their tax obligations, converting them to credits. This structure sets the project apart from previous urban farms or sluggish VC-funded startups.

Solar panels rotate with the sun so direct sunlight can reach inside the CEA facility and stimulate photosynthesis. Software allows the indoor farmer to create direct sun exposure on certain plants while creating shade for others, all based on each plant’s DNA preference.

The solar panels (modules) can be fully closed facing outward to create 100% shade inside if desired for any length of time controlled by the grower. By using TSO Greenhouses’ technology, vertical farmers and greenhouse growers can control and optimize sun and shade exposure simultaneously. This allows different crops to grow in zones inside the structure tailored precisely to receive the ideal light and shade to maximize plant life and production.

This 11-acre greenhouse will eventually serve as a headquarters to 12 smaller greenhouse hubs across Kansas. What makes this greenhouse unique is its ability to recycle solar energy to grow crops 24 hours a day while powering lucrative 5G data centers.

TURKEY: Vegetables Will Be Grown In The Geothermal Greenhouse Established on 60 Decares In Sivasta

The first seedlings were planted for the products to be grown in the geothermal greenhouse established on 60 decares of land in Sivasta Hot Çermik region.

120 thousand tomato seedlings were planted in a 60-acre glass greenhouse, which was started to be built a year ago in the region and will be heated by geothermal water, which cost about 40 million lira. Sivas Governor Salih Ayhan, Mayor Hilmi Bilgin and former Sivas Mayor businessperson Sami Aydın Stating that Sivas has gained a great value, Ayhan said: “I congratulate our company, which has brought a very high technology and a seminal service to Sivas, for its courage,”.

I can say that it is one of the projects that excites me the most. Sivas is developing in every field, but there is a completely different development in agriculture. I can say that Sivas has gained a very good momentum in agriculture. We use Thermal not only for health tourism but also for visual and cultural purposes. This place almost added value to the region. Saying that the greenhouse will open a vision for Sivas, Bilgin thanked Sami Aydın for bringing a modern, world-class greenhouse to Sivas. The Çermik Region has been distributing healing for years. I hope Sivas will be a cluster with this greenhouse project.

Sami Aydın also said that they have accomplished a first in Sivas and implemented the thermal smart greenhouse project. Stating that he was happy to realise the first seedling planting of such a facility, Aydın said, This is the first greenhouse project in Sivas, a smart greenhouse. While hot Çermik water has been healing for health until today, it will also be healing for agriculture from now on.

In the seedling planting done in accordance with the social distance rules, the protocol members passed through the disinfectant cabin one by one and were taken to the greenhouse area.

In Malahide, Two Friends Raise A Vertical Farm

Image from: Dublin Inquirer

When salesman Jack Hussey finishes his work day, he closes the laptop, leaves his home in Malahide and walks 10 minutes down the road. At the bottom of his friend’s farm sits an outhouse with a coldroom which now hosts his side business, Upfarm. A farm that goes upwards.

Imagine a shelf rack, says Hussey. “We’ve kitted the roofs of each shelf with an LED grow light. It’s to replicate the sunlight basically.”

A photo of the farm shows purple light beaming down on thick heads of lemongrass and basil, stacked on shelves. Yields from vertical farming are far more efficient than in-the-ground farming, Hussey said, on the phone last Friday.

He likens it to real estate. “You can have houses that are populated side by side or you can start going upwards with apartments.”

From Podcast to Table

Hussey always had an interest in food, he says. Last year he and a school friend, Bill Abbott, began to look into urban farming.

“But we were saying, is farming in the ground actually the best route to go?” Hussey says.

It’s labour intensive, which didn’t suit the two guys, who work other full-time jobs. Then, in March 2020, Hussey heard a podcast with American urban farmer Curtis Stone. He had an urban farm where he was using a spin-farming method, says Hussey. “It’s what they call it. You rotate crops out of the ground in a much more efficient way.”

“Essentially he was able to capitalise on a third acre of land. He was able to take in 80k a year,” he says.

Hussey was inspired by that, by somebody making the most of a small bit of land. So in June last year, in the middle of a pandemic and juggling working from home, Hussey and Abbot set about doing the same, albeit with a different model, and launched their vertical farm.

Image from: Farmony

How It Works

Farmony, which specialises in tech for vertical farming, sold Upfarm with the tools to get up and running – shelves, special LED lighting, a watering system and humidifiers. It is the ideal conditions for growing produce, says Framony co-founder John Paul Prior. Nutrients, hours of light, humidity and temperature are controlled in vertical farming, Prior says.

But Farmony is also a data company, Prior says. “So we capture data at all stages of the growing cycle. And we feed that back to the grower.”

This helps the grower to establish the optimum conditions, he says. “That’s not just in terms of plant growth, that’s in terms of workflow management.”

The size of an operation can be the small coldroom in Malahide that uses one Farmony module, and produces microgreens and wheatgrass for sale. Or it can be like a farm in Tipperary with 60 modules, he says. A module is 1 metre wide, 1.3 metres long and 2.5 metres tall, Prior says. Hussey says it is labour-intensive looking after a vertical farm module.

After work last Thursday, he and his dad replanted his microgreen crops into 30 different trays. “It took about two hours,” he says.

What Is the Benefit?

“So as long as you can control your temperature, your humidity, and your nutrient levels in the water, you can basically grow all year round,” says Prior. Vertical farming also means better conditions for workers, Prior says.

“If you’re working in a controlled environment, like a vertical farm, you’re working in a clean environment,” Prior says.

“You work between 18 to 22 degrees. There’s no harsh frost. There’s no extreme cold winters, equally there’s no burning-hot summers.,” says Prior.

The crop is consistent too, says Prior, thanks to the controlled environment.

“Let’s say I’m someone who loves basil and who makes a lot of pesto at home,” he says.

Getting basil of consistent quality from the supermarket can be difficult when it comes from different countries, or may have been sitting on a shelf for days after travelling thousands of miles, he says.

Image from: Farmony

Why Is this Important?

Soil quality is dropping, Hussey says. “What does that mean for outdoor growing?”

The answer, Hussey says, is vertical farming. It uses mineral-rich water so it doesn’t rely on nutrients from the ground, Hussey says.

Says Prior: “Vertical farming uses about 10 percent of the water of traditional farming.”

Prior says it takes less energy to get food from a nearby vertical farm than to ship it from afar. It was not always the case until a breakthrough in another industry, he says.

“Billions of dollars have been invested in the cannabis industry globally. It’s meant that the investment in grow-lighting technology has been huge,” he says.

“As a result, the price, the efficiency and most importantly, the energy efficiency of the lighting is really amazing” he says.

Says Hussey: “It’s not easy work but it is nice work. It’s good work.”

UNFI Picks Up Living Greens Farm Products in Midwest Expansion

I|mage from: Living Green Farms

Living Greens Farm (LGF), the largest vertical, indoor aeroponic farm in the US that provides year-round fresh salads, salad kits, microgreens and herbs, announced the addition of significant new retail distribution of its products in the upper Midwest to independent, specialty, and co-op retailers.

Starting February 2021, LGF’s full line of products featuring ready-to-eat bagged salad products (Caesar Salad Kit, Southwest Salad Kit, Harvest Salad Kit, Chopped Romaine, and Chopped Butter Lettuce) will be carried by UNFI Produce Prescott (formerly Alberts Fresh Produce). UNFI Produce Prescott is a division of UNFI, which distributes food products to thousands of stores nationwide. Their focus is on independent, specialty and co-op retailers.

UNFI has eight warehouses nationwide. LGF’s products will be carried by their upper Midwest location, located just across the river from the Twin Cities in Prescott, WI. This distribution center services hundreds of retailers throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska. UNFI is the first national Certified Organic distributor, something they take a lot of pride in. Their produce and floral businesses are rooted in local farms and seasonal import growers.

LGF’s proprietary vertical indoor farming method yields the highest quality and freshest produce available. This is because there are no pesticides or chemicals used in the growing process. And because LGF’s growing, cleaning and bagging process significantly reduces handling and time to the retail shelf, consumers enjoy the freshest product on the market. These benefits continue to attract new users and new retail distribution as UNFI Produce Prescott is the second UNFI location to carry LGF. In December, UNFI’s Hopkins, MN location began offering LGF products.

For more information on why Living Greens Farm products are the cleanest, freshest and healthiest farm salads and greens available, go to www.livinggreensfarm.com.

Fifth Season Takes Vertical Farming to a Whole New Level

Image from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette

Fifth Season’s verdant baby spinach screams farm fresh even though it’s grown nowhere near traditional farmland. The sweet and slightly crunchy greens are grown in a Braddock warehouse on racks stacked 30 feet high. Located just a stone’s throw from U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works Edgar Thomson Plant, it is urban farming at its core.

What makes the vertical farming operation especially unique is that it is automated and robots call the shots. About 40 to 60 machines are involved in every step of the life of the spinach and other leafy greens, from planting the seed to providing nutrients to the final packing.

Fifth Season does employ local “farm workers” to assist the robots in seeding, harvesting, packaging, quality assurance and control using computer software, but there is no human touch involved through it all.

“The first time someone ever touches the spinach leaf with a finger is when the package is opened,” says Grant Vandenbussche, chief category officer.

Co-founded by brothers Austin and Brac Webb and Austin Lawrence, Fifth Season started a year ago. Within months it was rolling out its baby spinach, leafy greens and salad kits.

“We wanted a name that represents what we are doing,” says Austin Webb, 32, who also is the CEO. “It is a call to the fact we have created an entirely new season. It is 24/7, 365 with the technology we have built.”

None of them planned to become modern farmers, says the Carnegie Mellon University grad, but they turned to vertical farming because it was an efficient, economically sustainable way to solve land and water woes.

Image from: thespoon.tech

‘Fields’ of Greens

Fifth Season grows an equivalent production of 200 acres in 25,000 square feet of grow space. Its “fields” are stacked on top of one another in vertical shelves. When you add up all that surface area of grow space, it is more like 126,000 square feet.

“We also quickly turn crops at the farm,” Mr. Vandenbussche says.

While spinach takes about 40 days to grow outdoors and can be harvested only twice during its peak season, it takes the crop only three or four weeks to grow in the controlled environment and is harvested 19 times. Once the plants are harvested, a new cycle of reseeding begins with fresh media, seeds and nutrients.

“That’s why we get so much more productivity,” he says. “We are immediately reseeding our ‘land.’”

This controlled environment yields quality produce because it is always peak season at Fifth Season, says Chris Cerveny, who heads the Grow R&D division. Greens are grown in the same conditions year-round, getting the exact amount of nutrients and water they need. Because pests and airborne toxins also are kept at bay, crops can be produced without pesticides.

All that TLC comes through in the slightly curled baby spinach, which is sweet and not grassy. The leaf doesn’t wilt or get slimy or lose its slight crunch even after two weeks of refrigeration.

A lot of thought was given even for the curl, which gives the spinach a stronger volume, making it look full and bountiful. The curl also makes the spinach more forkable unlike its flat-leaf counterpart that is hard to stab on a plate.

Other leafy greens such as kale, mustard, Chinese cabbage, green tatsoi and purple pac choi are featured in two blends — Bridge City and Three Rivers. Fifth Season plans to roll out its Romaine lettuce in spring.

The greens also are found in four types of salad kits — Sweet Grains (blended greens, quinoa, chickpeas, corn, feta and poppy seed dressing), Crunchy Sesame (blended greens, farro, sesame sticks, dried cranberries and ginger-mandarin dressing), Toasted Tuscan (spinach, lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, bagel chips and vinaigrette), and Spiced Southwest (blended greens, black beans, pepitas, cotija cheese, corn-salsa sticks and chipotle ranch dressing) — which are available online and in Giant Eagle stores. A fifth salad kit is in the works and is being called “a shakeup of one of the most classic salads.”

While machines are a big part of what Fifth Season does, it seeks to keep human connection alive. It recently launched a recipe blog for those who have an appetite for cooking and writing, The Green Room is devoted to cataloging personal memories, dream meals and recipes via short stories.

Fifth Season also has partnered with the Penguins and is providing greens for the team’s pregame meals for the 2020-21 season.

“We want people in Pittsburgh to be able to eat the exact same delicious blend of greens that Sidney Crosby and company are eating,” Mr. Webb says. “We want people to know that there’s a new way to grow food and to eat and experience it.”

Image from: Next Pittsburgh

It’s All Under Control

Everything from seeding to packaging is done in four rooms. The process starts in the seeding and processing room, where seeds and growing media are placed inside black planter-like boxes called inserts. Each has a unique code that’s traced by a software system. The inserts go on white trays that pass through a photo station, feeding information to the computer system, and then glide into the bio dome.

There are two rooms in the bio dome, each with a grow space of 12,500 square feet. They’re lit up with a pinkish-purplish glow from high-efficiency LED light bulbs that mimic the different seasons of the year.

“They are positioned over the plants at different heights depending on stage of growth,” Mr. Cerveny says. “This is partly how we can provide consistently ideal growing conditions.”

As the plants grow, they are moved by a robot to optimize their growth cycle. Full-grown crops are transferred to the harvesting room by another robot.

“Harvesting is where it becomes like a Willy Wonka factory,” Mr. Vandenbussche says.

Long rows of trays filled with tiny plants are sent on a conveyor system to a station where workers inspect them for quality with surgical tools. After inspection, the plants are harvested by a robot and then immediately ride up a tall conveyor to be packaged and sealed in a 34- to 36-degree room so they remain fresh.

“Every crop we grow gets evaluated for maximum flavor, volume, crunch and color,” he says.

The plants’ intense, dark color is controlled by LED light bulbs, which are dialed up or down to get the correct hue. Although they never see the sun, the greens don’t get into a funk as humans might.

“What humans see in terms of light and how chlorophyll responds during photosynthesis are two different things,” Mr. Cerveny says. “Plants really only need red and blue light to grow effectively. We include some additional colors to help bring out other quality aspects of our crops, but providing the full sunlight spectrum is effectively a waste of energy, especially indoors.

“To the human eye, it looks like the plants live in a land of purple and pink lights, but they are perfectly happy there.”

Even though the environment is controlled and the software system is constantly updated, no two plants are exactly the same. Some fight for light more than others. Some might fail the quality control test and end up in a compost waste facility if their flavor is off or their color is not right.

“That is what is so amazing. We have more control than any other farmer, and yet we have limitations. Every seed is different,” Mr. Vandenbussche says. “They are plants. They are real living organisms.”

Agritecture Partners With Harvest Returns Crowdfunding Platform To Modernize Urban Agriculture Financing

Image from: Harvest Returns

Fort Worth, Texas – Agritecture, LLC, an urban farming consulting and digital services firm, announced it has partnered with Harvest Returns, an agriculture investing platform.

The two companies will work together to accelerate the urban farming and controlled environment agriculture (CEA) industry across the country by offering new entrepreneurs a more accessible way to raise capital. This type of farming can reduce the environmental impact of the food system and increase local food security. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of centralized food production,” said Chris Rawley, CEO of Harvest Returns. “Developing additional indoor farms will distribute growing operations closer to where food is consumed, creating a more resilient food system.” 

In 2020, the USDA offered the availability of only $3M in grants for urban agriculture and innovative production. Agritecture notes that the average CapEx, or startup cost, for controlled environment farms modeled via their Agritecture Designer digital platform is $512,000, and nearly one-third are over $1M.

Image from: Urban Ag News

“Since our founding in 2014, we’ve seen sustained, year-over-year growth in interest toward urban agriculture, especially amongst industry newcomers,” said Henry Gordon-Smith, Founder and CEO of Agritecture. This growth has only accelerated since the onset of the pandemic, according to the team at Agritecture, which reported nearly a 2x increase in website traffic since Q1 of 2020.

“Despite this increasing interest and the record levels of funding for the handful of indoor mega farms, financing continues to be one of the primary challenges for small and medium-scale CEA businesses,” Gordon-Smith notes. “Yet, we know these farms can achieve profitability with competitive payback periods, while still serving their local markets and communities.”

Gordon-Smith cites Agritecture’s 2019 and 2020 Global CEA Census Reports, produced alongside agtech solutions provider Autogrow, which show that nearly half of all CEA facilities are being started by those with no previous farming experience.

Furthermore, per their recent census, 78 percent of CEA business founders who attempted to raise money were unsuccessful in doing so through traditional financing sources, such as banks.

“By teaming up with Harvest Returns and their innovative financing platform, we can now deliver a direct link from our planning services and digital platform, Agritecture Designer, to funding opportunities for these smaller-scale facilities,” added Gordon-Smith.

Pontus Submits Building Permit Application for Surrey Aquaponics Facility

VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 3, 2021 /CNW/ - Pontus Protein Ltd. ("Pontus" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce it has made significant progress towards the development of its state of the art, integrated aquaponics facility located in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada (the "Facility").

Image from: CNW Group/Pontus Protein Ltd

The Company has submitted a construction application to the City of Surrey for its 20,570 square foot aquaponics facility. The approval process is estimated to be completed within 6 weeks and is expected to be followed by the immediate commencement of construction of the Facility's leasehold improvements. Accordingly, the leasehold improvements are to consist of a complete retrofit of the Facility to establish Pontus' solar-powered, water recycling CEVASTM aquaponic system.

The installation of all required equipment for the growth and production is forecasted to take between four and six months to complete. Upon completion, the Facility will be approximately 20 times the size of Pontus' prior prototype facility. The prototype facility has been used to test and develop the technology for the Company's proprietary growing process.

The Facility, as seen in the image above and video below, will utilize an array of additional technologies to create a clean and sustainable aquaponics ecosystem. Solar energy panels will be installed to capture renewable energy and power the closed-loop water system, which recycles up to 95% of all water inputs. The implementation of the Facility's unique, sustainable technology in conjunction with Pontus' proprietary CEVAS™ automated growth technology will allow the Company to emphasize biosecurity in its agricultural production processes, removing the need for additional chemicals, pesticides, and other non-native components.

Pontus CEO, Conner Yuen states: "Entering the construction application process is a major milestone for the Company as we move toward the commissioning of the Facility. Our aim is to create a state of the art process that will incorporate the latest in sustainable agriculture technology. The ability to implement this highly efficient technology solves many issues we see with current methods of food production such as land scarcity and low yields and contamination.

Pontus' biosecurity and renewable food sources are intended to create a proactive solution to these issues by reducing the potential for contamination and the need for pesticides. Pontus hopes the Facility will revolutionize how traditional agriculture is conducted and show the power of technological food advancements."

Plant-based Protein Powder Market

The Company's plant-based protein powder is a premium entry into the global protein and supplements market, which is currently valued at USD$15 Billion and is expected to grow to USD$20 Billion by 2025 according to Grand View Research. This growth is expected to be fuelled by many North Americans reducing or eliminating the regular consumption of animal products. The North American plant-based protein market is also anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14% from 2019 through 2025.

About Pontus Protein Ltd

Pontus Protein Ltd. makes pure plant-based protein powder sourced from nutritious water lentils, farm-grown in Vancouver, BC, with development plans to expand to Surrey, B.C.. Not only does Pontus Protein Powder exceed certified organic standards, but it's also gluten-free, pure and allergen safe. It's jam-packed full of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and ALL the essential amino acids.

This is not your average lentil, these are water lentils; a crop that can be harvested every 24 hours in an indoor aquaponic farm that uses 95% less water than traditional agriculture, using Pontus' proprietary Closed Environment Vertical Aquaponics System (or CEVAS™) aquaponic agritech technology. This is wonderful news for a planet populated with us hungry and health-conscious humans.

Farm In A Box Planned For Bridgeport's East End

Image from: CT Post

BRIDGEPORT — You will not find any vast acres of fertile soil and crops in the East End neighbourhood. So the state, city and area activists have teamed with an entrepreneur on what they all said they believe is the next best thing: farmland in a box.

Joe Alvarez, founder of High Ridge Hydroponics of Ridgefield, describes it on his website as “an indoor, vertical, hydroponic, shipping container farm to be located in the most urban settings throughout the world.” And the East End — which has been labeled a “food desert” because of the lack of fresh edibles easily available to residents there — will be that urban setting.

“We’re very excited about this,” Keith Williams, head of the East End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone community group, said during a teleconference Friday announcing a $49,999 state grant for Alvarez’s project. “Fresh vegetables. Healthy. That’s what we’re all about — healthy eating.”

High Ridge’s container will produce young micro-greens from broccoli, kale, cabbage, arugula and other plants to be sold at the East End NRZ’s market as a salad mix.

“These greens are harvested after only 10 to 14 days from being planted, which is extremely quick (and) they are super concentrated in nutrition,” Alvarez said.

Friday’s teleconference included several dignitaries who pledged to do everything they can to ensure High Ridge’s success in town, including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, state Agriculture Commissioner Bryan Hurlburt, state Sen. Marilyn Moore, state Rep. Andre Baker, Mayor Joe Ganim and Edward Lavernoich of the Bridgeport Economic Development Corporation.

“I hope this project has a lasting and positive impact on your community,” Bysiewicz said. “And I hope it will become a model for other urban areas in our state to grow their own food using innovative technology and techniques.”

“This is not just a shipping container in the city,” Hurlburt said. “This is a much larger, deeper and richer project that we get to celebrate today.”

State Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford, was also included, but wearing a different hat. Gresko works for Ganim continuing a mission started by former Mayor Bill Finch to turn Bridgeport from an ex-manufacturing hub into a leader in the green and environmentally sustainable economy.

It was under Finch that the East End was previously promised an urban green house on the site of the former “Mt. Trashmore” illegal dump. That project, dubbed “Boot Camp Farms” because it would hire veterans, was announced in 2013 and was also supposed to have financial backing from the state. But the developers had no prior experience in that field and the proposal never broke ground.

Alvarez, according to his online biography, “studied environmental science at Fordham University in New York City, graduated in May of 2017 (and) has worked as a private organic gardener, an aquaponic farmer, built greenhouses, maintained greenhouses and designed several custom hydroponic growing systems.”

Hurlburt said he felt confident the new project would be a success.

Alvarez “has limited experience but he knows what he’s doing. ... I know how much Joe was calling us and emailing us and how badly he wanted this grant to make it a reality. I know his heart is right where it needs to be to make it a success.”

“We’re all in this together to make sure Joe has the support he needs to be successful,” Hurlburt emphasized.

There are still important details to be finalized, including getting a site for the shipping container and additional money to cover the full, nearly $150,000 cost. Gresko said that the NRZ was negotiating to use some property and that “when the time comes” Bridgeport will “match” additional private funds Alvarez obtains.

“We’re going to keep an eye on this and troubleshoot as we go forward any issues,” Gresko said.

Alvarez said he hopes to complete construction by the fall. And the colder months are when his crops will be the most needed, said Deborah Sims, who operates the NRZ market.

“After farmer’s market season is over, we have difficulty sourcing (fresh food),” Sims said.

“Three hundred sixty five (days) we’re going to have the greens available,” said Gresko.

Baker recalled how his East End funeral home has hosted some farmer’s markets and called the High Ridge project “a long time coming.” He also told Bysiewicz he hoped similar initiatives to offer more fresh food to his constituents will follow.

“Lieutenant governor, we’re going to be leaning on you and the governor for more support,” he said. “You’re going to hear more from us.”

Forget Politics, Danny Ayalon Wants to Effect Change on The Ground

Having transitioned from politics to agriculture, Danny Ayalon shares how vertical farming, which provides fresh fruits and vegetables all year round, and lab-grown meat can rehabilitate the environment and dramatically reduce household expenditures.

Image from: Yehoshua Yosef

The coronavirus pandemic has drawn attention to humankind's carbon footprint. More than ever before we ask ourselves, how can we become more sustainable? Can we prevent pollution? How can we minimize waste? What about lowering emission levels? Will there be enough food for everyone in the future?

Danny Ayalon, a former ambassador and foreign policy adviser to three prime ministers-turned entrepreneur,  believes that the answer to many of the world's problems lies in modern agriculture. 

Having transitioned from politics to agriculture, he works with Future Crops, an Amsterdam-based company focused on vertical farming – the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers that often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth – and MeaTech, a company that creates lab-grown meat.

"Ever since the coronavirus came into our lives, we realized that man is not in charge of the universe," Ayalon told Israel Hayom. 

"Our control over the forces of nature, of Earth, of our future is more limited than we had thought. And when we are no longer in charge of the world, only three things guarantee our lives here: food, water, and energy security. Food, water, and energy are three resources that can be depleted and therefore literally cast a cloud on our world. 

"Experts have come to a conclusion that one of the most important fields to focus on is agriculture, and indeed we are currently witnessing the most significant agricultural revolution ever since the first agricultural revolution that took place about 10,00 years ago."

Q: Back then, in the first agricultural revolution, there was a need for a lot of land. 

"But today we have technology. The name of the game is to reach maximum output with minimum input in the smallest space possible. This is the holy grail of the new revolution. And that is how technology enters the picture. To grow fruits, vegetables and spices today requires lots of space. The technology we developed at Future Crops allows us to minimize the space, increase production and redefine the food supply chain."

Q: How exactly? 

"We have a nine-story hangar in Amsterdam to grow crops like coriander, basil, dill, and parsley. It has LED lights, and each plant gets exactly the amount of light it needs. We are the plant psychologists, [we] listen to all its needs and do everything to make sure the plant grows in the most optimal way. 

Image from: Future Crops

"If it lacks something, it immediately receives water. Everything is done without a human's touch. We use algorithms and big data in collaboration with world-class researchers from the Weizmann Institute. It is essentially the application of vertical farming, growing various crops in vertically stacked layers,  in enclosed structures, on soil platforms. 

"For example, if it takes a month to grow lettuce in an open field, in a vertical farm, it takes two weeks, half that time. There's also a significant reduction in water consumption, and no pesticides or sprays are used at all. Also, the produce is available in all seasons; it does not depend on the temperature. Whoever likes mangos and strawberries, for example, will be able to enjoy them all year round."

Q: So if produce is grown faster and within a smaller space, is it going to cost less?

"The prices might be a bit higher today because this technology and the various infrastructures require an economic return of the initial investment in them. With time, the process will become more efficient, and the investments will be repaid, so in the end, the prices that the consumer will need to pay will be lower than today. 

"Let me give you a simple example. Do you know how much a kilogram [2.2 pounds] of basil costs in Europe today? €90 ($108). In Israel, the price is €20 ($24). In the [United Arab] Emirates, where almost everything connected to food is imported – the prices go accordingly as well. Once you have more innovative vertical farms, consumers will pay much less."

Q: Should we expect vertical farm skyscrapers to pop up all over? 

"I'm not sure that we will need skyscrapers, as with time the facilities will become smaller. Imagine that in every supermarket there will be a vertical produce stand with all the vegetables and spices, and later also fruits which you pick on the spot, without the need to move the produce from place to place. That is why vertical farming is also called urban farming, meaning there is no need for fields; you can grow [produce] on the rooftop. No resource limits you."

Q: What about the taste? 

"Ours is a fresher and tastier product. I ought to give credit to the Weizmann Institute here. The challenge for them wasn't the quality of the vitamins but the taste, and they managed to achieve a great taste. In the Netherlands, Future Crops already sells parsley, and it tastes outstanding."

Q: Regular parsley lasts for about two weeks in the fridge. What about Future Crops parsley? 

"Our parsley has a two-month shelf life, and it does not oxidize within a week or two."

Q: If every country will be self-reliant in terms of agriculture, do you think it will affect relations between countries? 

"Economies will become self-sufficient eventually, which will ensure security with far fewer conflicts. There is less and less water in the Middle East, which might someday lead to tensions. We hope technology will reduce the tensions between countries, and territory will be less critical. Our world faces crucial challenges. Food and water security have the potential to either divide or bring us together and ensure our long-term existence. 

"By the way, in every developed Western country, like the United States, Australia, and also in Europe, issues of food security, climate, and greenhouse emissions are on the top of the political agenda. We are not talking about it [in Israel,] as security and foreign affairs take the central stage, but Israel does have a lot to offer here."

Q: Do we have the potential to become the Silicon Valley of advanced agriculture? 

"Israel takes tremendous pride in its actions that help save the world. Will we become the Silicon Valley of agriculture? There is no doubt about it. We can already see foreign investors who come here to look for opportunities, including my business partner Lior Maimon, co-founder and CEO of Silver Road Capital, and Steven Levin, one of the leaders of the US food industry. Silver Road Capital is a holdings and financial advisory firm with a broad portfolio of high-tech companies, as well as agricultural and food technologies, and represents international companies and funds in investments in Israel and the world. 

"Future Crops's goal is to raise 35 million shekels on the Israeli stock exchange to invest in enlarging the existing facilities and [set up] other production lines and facilities in Europe and other continents. We cooperate with the Albert Heijn supermarket chain [in the Netherlands] and a leading food chain in France."

Q: Vertical farming is estimated at $3 billion. Google and Amazon have invested hundreds of millions in the field as well. What is their goal? 

"A simple answer would be profit. A longer answer is that they [large corporations] understand that food has the highest demand. People cannot live without food and water, and Google and Amazon understand that potential."

Q: US President Joe Biden took office with the largest team of climate experts ever. That ought to give the field momentum. 

"Green energy and vertical farming will get a considerable boost. Climate change and green energy are well-rooted in the Democratic Party's ideology. 

"It is also possible that large companies entered the agriculture fields precisely because of the Biden administration; they are worried about their future. They are afraid of a certain dismantling, so focusing on secondary fields is part of a security scenario for them."

Q: Biden also wants to address greenhouse emissions, which are the result of the food production industry, mainly meat. Are Amazon and Google's food counterparts - McDonald's and Burger King - looking for meat substitutes?

"Firstly, cultured [lab-grown] meat does not require grazing land, cows do not need to be fed, and so much land can instead be turned into forests that support the environment. This is an optimistic industry that leaves us with a better world. 

"As for the meat alternatives market, there are two major companies in the US that produce plant-based protein, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods. 

"Impossible's burgers are already at Burger King, McDonald's has partnered up with Beyond Meat, and last November, it announced that it would create its own plant-based burger. 

"The problem is that pea protein [used in plant-based burgers,] does not have all the amino acids that animal protein contains. Also, they need to add additives to supplement for taste and smell.

"At MeaTech, where I'm a director, we are on our way to producing animal meat, cultured meat, real stakes: we take a cow's own stem cell from which meat can be produced in almost unlimited quantities. We also use 3D digital printing technology. And we also created a thin layer of meat, carpaccio. Needless to say, no cow was harmed in the process."

Image from: MeaTech

Q: Why do you use 3D printers? 

"Because there is no need for a human being's involvement. It is relevant now during the coronavirus pandemic when the food supply chain is disrupted. With such printers, your production can continue without delays, whenever you want. 

Also, it is theoretically possible to provide food for space flights. Astronauts who go out into space will not have to take food with them; rather, they will be able to produce it on the spot.

"People understand that crises like the coronavirus can disrupt the supply chain and are looking for alternatives. A 3D printer allows restaurants, supermarkets, and butcher shops to have meat without relying on the supply chain."

Q: The death rate from obesity is higher than the death rate from hunger. How will cultured meat affect these statistics? 

"It is possible to create meat with much less fat and more protein in each portion and add various nutrients in the future to strengthen the immune system and prevent disease. This, of course, requires a lot of research and approvals. Just like there's talk about customized medicine, so it will be possible to produce food that suits a person's genetic structure and body in the most optimal way."

Q: Will the cost of this meat also be optimal? 

"They will cost more in the beginning compared to regular meat because there are initial costs that have to be repaid. When it becomes a mass production, prices will drop over time."

Q: With your vast experience in politics, what do you think of Israeli politics these days? Do you ever consider a political comeback? 

"No election campaign goes by without someone making me an offer [to return to politics] but I'm not interested. Unfortunately, the Israeli government, and all governments in the Western world, have not been able to run their countries properly in recent years.

"For example, more of the government's national taks are transitioning to the private market or the third sector. We see that associations [are the ones] who take care of the needy, establish settlements in the Negev and in the Galilee, bring immigrants to Israel and provide Israelis with information. All these things should be done by the government.

"The Israeli government lacks vision, ideologies, every matter is personal and is charged with negative sentiments. If I do return one day, it will only happen after we change the government system which will take its power from small [political] parties.

"In my opinion, we need to transition to a regional choice, by district. This will result in higher quality politicians. How so? Because whoever wants to be elected will need to run and convince the people who live in his area and district, and they are the ones who know his activities best. Also, closed primaries should be avoided because they make all kinds of deals possible. That needs to change."

“Autonomy Will Not Happen Until We Start Sharing Data”

In an emerging industry with companies eager to prove their technologies’ worth, Sensei Ag remains form-factor agnostic, meaning that the agtech company remains unbiased towards different farm hardware solutions – focusing more on software and plant biology.

Sensei Ag is a market-changing agtech company that develops agile growing solutions through a highly iterative approach to farming, focused on improving the nutritional quality of fruits and vegetables while also reducing production costs. The company combines plant science, computer vision, machine learning, automation and artificial intelligence into its growing systems.

According to Sensei Ag CEO Sonia Lo, remaining form factor agnostic is key to the company’s mission of providing hyper-nutritious food to as large a consumer base as possible, which it achieves through both vertical farms and greenhouses.

Image from: Sensei Ag

“We believe that the most robust data comes from operating farms of multiple types. So, not just vertical farms, but also low-tech and high-tech greenhouses. And with vertical farms, we are looking at a number of form factors. Our end goal is to be  a grower’s resource and know more about growing at scale with different form factors than anyone else.”

The company is also a strong advocate for open data in the vertical farming industry, which is currently lacking, as evidenced by the siloed development of multiple systems and products, some of which cannot be easily integrated into third-party systems.

“There are lots of data flows and increasingly inexpensive farm management systems. The question, then, is the organization of data into intelligence. Intelligence facilitates autonomy, and as we manage data flows, more farms can become autonomous. But I don’t think autonomy will happen until we start sharing data. For example, we saw an automation supplier with a great robot.

The problem was the robot only works in their ecosystem, so you have to buy the whole farming solution in order for the one robot to work. Ideally, that robot would be plug and play and be able to work in greenhouses and vertical farms,” says Sonia.

Image from: Sensei Ag

According to Sonia, open data in the vertical farming industry may currently be restricted by the dominance of venture financing, which has its own return mandates to fulfill and sometimes wants a “winner takes it all” mentality for the ventures it chooses to back. While such financing has allowed the vertical farming industry to emerge, it may ultimately hinder the industry’s scalability and information sharing.

“There is definitely a capital model in Silicon Valley and in venture capital world in general which is not focused on profitability but is focused on technological achievement and market penetration. We saw this in solar and in the renewables industry when multiple venture capital funds invested in solar assets. Then, the bottom fell out because government subsidies fell away in certain jurisdictions.

I hope that agricultural infrastructure currently financed by venture capital will not necessarily follow the same pathway as solar, but will instead find a public-private partnership model. At some point, these farms need to demonstrate a profit for the debt capital markets to allow scale to occur.”

Image from: Sensei Ag

By embracing open data and transparency, Sonia explains that the vertical farming industry can further mature and iterate with technology to continue lowering costs. By continuously collecting and sharing data from different farm forms, the vertical farming industry would have better insights into the true costs which, according to Sonia, “helps drive scale because it enables the finance community to understand how the farms can be risk assessed and financed.”

Looking ahead, Sensei Ag hopes to form partnerships around the world to bring its innovative, data-driven growing systems across the globe. Taking the Middle East, China and Japan as examples, Sonia explained that the goal would be to choose strategic partners in each region whose local knowledge and business prowess would allow Sensei Ag to iterate its technologies appropriately and serve local markets, bringing cost-competitive farming techniques and nutritious, local produce around the world.

Ensuring Singapore's Food Security Despite the Odds

Image from: Reuters

As with most issues that impact national security in Singapore, it often seems that the odds are stacked against us.  Food security — access to safe and nutritious food — is a challenge on several fronts. 

Singapore is a small city-state with limited resources, with only 1 per cent of land available for food production, and over 90 per cent of food is imported from an increasingly disrupted world. The Covid-19 pandemic has further amplified the gravity of safeguarding food security.  The city-state has been proactively planning for long-term food security through the Singapore Food Agency’s (SFA) strategy of “three food baskets” — diversifying food sources, growing locally and growing overseas.  This approach has served the Republic well in securing a supply of safe food.

DIVERSIFIED SOURCING IS KEY

Singapore’s food importers leverage the nation’s connectivity and the global free trade environment to import from multiple sources in about 170 countries and regions worldwide.  Should there be a disruption to any one source, importers are able to tap alternative food sources and ensure supply remains stable. Lockdown measures brought about by Covid-19 underscored Singapore’s vulnerabilities to supply disruptions in food. 

It was not by luck that the Republic’s food supply remained stable and market shelves continued to be promptly restocked — it was the result of a deliberate whole-of-government strategy to diversify food sources. To keep the nation’’s diversified food supply lines intact amid the Covid-19 global pandemic, SFA worked closely with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Enterprise Singapore (ESG) to monitor Singapore’s food supply situation. Together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these economic agencies worked with like-minded countries to maintain open trade links.

LOCAL PRODUCTION AN IMPORTANT BUFFER

SFA drives innovation in local farms with the ambitious goal of producing 30 per cent of Singapore’s nutritional needs by 2030 as part of our “30 by 30” plan.  To meet this goal, we need a holistic and long-term approach to space-planning, boosting agri-food technology and developing local agri-specialists. To facilitate and support the establishment of high-technology and productive farms in Singapore, SFA tenders out land based on qualitative criteria such as production capability, production track record, relevant experience and qualifications, innovation and sustainability.

In addition, a masterplan for the greater Lim Chu Kang (LCK) region, spanning about 390ha of land, will be undertaken in consultation with stakeholders over the next two to three years.  The redeveloped LCK agri-food cluster will produce more than three times its current food production.

Building on the above efforts to grow Singapore’s high-tech agri-tech sector, SFA will continue to partner with the Economic Development Board and ESG to attract best-in-class global agri-tech companies, as well as to nurture promising homegrown agri-tech companies into local champions and help them to expand overseas.

EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE, UNDERUTILISED SPACES

Urban food solutions are expected to play a key role in global food security.  While there are progressive enterprises operating out of farmlands and industrial estates, some agricultural game-changers are also taking root in unconventional areas — indoors, on rooftops and in underutilised spaces.

SFA worked with the Singapore Land Authority to introduce an urban farm at the former Henderson Secondary School site, which was transformed into Singapore’s first integrated space comprising an urban farm, childcare centre and nursing home within a state property.  The farm space within the site was awarded in May 2019 to social enterprise City Sprouts, and it has become a vibrant destination for the young and old to learn about urban farming and enjoy a relaxing day out.

Citiponics, the first commercial farm located on a multi-storey car park in a residential neighbourhood, harvested its first yield of vegetables in April 2019.  In September 2020, another nine sites atop multi-storey car parks were awarded for urban farming. 

The successful bidders included proposals for hydroponic and vertical farming systems with a variety of innovative features, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain technology and automated climate control.  These sites have the potential to collectively produce around 1,600 tonnes of vegetables annually.

Image from: Ciitiponics

TAPPING TECH

The Agriculture Productivity Fund (APF) supports local farms in their capability development and drive towards higher productivity.  Through APF, SFA co-funds the adoption of farming systems to better control environmental variables, test-bed technologies and boost production capabilities. Between October 2014 and September 2020, a total of almost S$42 million has been committed to 115 farms.

The Covid-19 pandemic presented greater impetus to speed up local food production capacities. In September 2020, SFA awarded S$39.4 million to nine companies under the 30x30 Express Grant to quickly ramp up food-farm outputs over the next six months to two years. With advanced robotic and digital systems increasingly being used in farming, Singapore’s vegetables farmers have also become innovative agri-engineers and specialists in their own right.

With support from the 30x30 Express Grant, urban farming engineering solutions firm Indoor Farm Factory Innovation will set up an indoor vegetable farm with a vertical integration growth system up to 8m in height in a fully controlled and pesticide-free environment.  The farm will leverage artificial intelligence farming systems integrated with IoT monitoring, dosing irrigation and an advanced environmental control system to achieve optimum growing conditions all year round.

Seng Choon, a chicken egg farm that has been in business for more than 30 years, has also proved itself a modernist in its operations.  The company uses a computer that scans eggs to ascertain if they are clean; while feeding systems, temperature controls and waste cleaning systems have been automated with SFA’s support. Singapore’s efforts at ensuring food security would not be complete without support from consumers.  To boost recognition of local produce among consumers, SFA brought the industry and public together to create a new “SG Fresh Produce” logo. 

Farmers have been using this emblem on their packaging since August 2020. A website was also launched to provide a trove of information on locally farmed food. While the Covid-19 pandemic has led to import restrictions, it also helped to accelerate support for local produce. With public support for local farmers and other key measures, Singapore can beat the odds in ensuring food security in this ever-evolving, ever-disrupted world.

Feeding Leeds: A Fair and Self-Sustaining Food System for the City

Image from: University of Leeds

A bold vision for feeding the population of Leeds would transform the city into a far more food secure, fair and sustainable place to live.

Analysts from the University of Leeds’ Global Food and Environment Institute studied the city’s food system to assess its resilience in the face of supply chain and delivery disruptions caused by severe weather, climate change and events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit.

The urban food system includes all the activities involved in the production, distribution and consumption of food within a city. 

They mapped and analysed publicly available data relating to agricultural production and human health in the metropolitan district and discovered that 48.4% of the city’s total calorific demand can be met by current commercial food production activities. 

This is relatively high for such an urbanised space, but there is little diversity in what is being produced. Three cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats) dominate the Leeds production system, reflecting a post-war food system that focused on energy supply. This means that most of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the city are transported in from elsewhere. 

The researchers’ findings also show that the most deprived areas of the district, which have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, are also likely to be the first to be impacted by supply disruptions. The resulting food shortages can increase prices, and people on low incomes may not have the option to travel to larger supermarkets or afford to bulk buy. 

The researchers say there are no quick and easy options for significantly increasing the security, fairness, or sustainability of the food system supplying Leeds. 

But they say the metropolitan district’s sizeable number of farmers, manufacturers, suppliers, and food services could all contribute to improving its food resilience by creating a system which provides easy access to healthy foods, shares energy, reuses water and nutrients and repurposes local infrastructure and resources. 

Caroline Orfila, who led the study, published today in the journal Food Security, is Professor of Plant Biochemistry and Nutrition in the School of Food Science and Nutrition. She said: “Our work demonstrates the inequalities in food production and dietary health. 

“The local food production system can only provide around 50% of the calories needed by the population, highlighting that ‘eating local’ is not currently possible for everyone. In particular, the local food system would not provide sufficient protein or fats. The lack of food diversity suggests current food production is also unlikely to meet vitamin and mineral requirements. 

“Any disruptions to food production, distribution or retail, from flooding, longer term climate change, COVID-19 or Brexit, is likely to impact those in deprived areas the most. 

“Disruptions tend to cause shortages in some food categories, which then increase food prices. People on low incomes spend more of their income on food; any increases in food prices will limit what they can afford to buy. 

“People in deprived areas have limited choice of where to buy foods, they may not have private transport to access larger supermarkets or access to online shopping. They may also not have the cash flow or storage space to buy items in bulk, relying on what is available. 

“Interventions are needed to level up those areas.” 

Researchers identified more than 1,000km2 of warehousing, derelict land, and unused floor space in abandoned buildings, with direct or possible connections to renewable energy and water. 

Half of this land lay near food banks, community centres and numerous food processors and outlets. 

The land could potentially be used for no waste innovative farming techniques, including vertical food farms, where crops are grown in vertically stacked layers; green walls, where plants grow on vertical surfaces, and rooftop agriculture, where fresh produce is grown on top of buildings. 

The study found that within the metropolitan district of Leeds there is substantial food activity with more than 5,500 businesses and charities supplying fresh and prepared food, including fast food providers, restaurants, and supermarkets. Some 23 food banks are located within the inner-city area. 

There are almost 100 hectares of allotment controlled by Leeds City Council, and approximately 39 hectares of private allotment and community growing areas in the Leeds Metropolitan District. 

Lead author Dr Paul Jensen, also from Leeds' School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds, said: “We found there are numerous underutilised city assets that could be incorporated into a resource efficient urban food ecosystem, which could include a mix of vertical farming, hydroponics, or more conventional growing methods. 

“Most notably, many of these areas are within those suffering most from food poverty, diet related health issues and a limited intake of fruit and vegetables - those who are usually the first to suffer during a crisis situation.” 

The research identified locations for ‘food hubs’ that connect producers to consumers and discuss the need for a coordinated approach between producers, government, charitable groups and consumers in creating a more sustainable food system. 

The research was carried out with FoodWise Leeds, a not-for-profit campaign by Leeds City Council, the University of Leeds, businesses and charities to address food health and sustainability issues. 

FoodWise Leeds co-ordinator Sonja Woodcock, said: “This past year has highlighted how vulnerable the local food system is. Taking a coordinated approach and implementing available policy levers, such as including local food within public procurement contracts, increasing access to land for both commercial and community food growing, as well as investing in cooking and food skills will help to create a more resilient and fair local food system.” 

Professor Orfila added: “These findings are significant because it shows the vulnerability and inequality of UK cities and urban food systems. The situation in Leeds mirrors the situation in many other cities worldwide.” 

Professor Steve Banwart, Global Food and Environment Institute Director said: “The results of this study provide essential evidence to guide access to nutrition for the entire population. The project dramatically changes our view of what is a city and what is a farm and catalyses our partnerships to build a more resilient community.”

Further Information

‘Mapping the Production-Consumption Gap of an Urban Food System: An Empirical Case Study of Food Security and Resilience’ and is published on 8 February in the journal Food Security. It is available online here:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-021-01142-2. 

For media enquiries, contact University of Leeds press office via pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk.

NASA's Challenge To Grow Food In Space Can Win You Up To $500,000

NASA has launched a 'Deep Space Food Challenge' to prompt innovation of food production techniques and technologies viable in outer space.

Image from: Deep Space Food

There are thousands of bizarre challenges doing the rounds on the internet. These unique challenges soon go viral on the internet, with countless participants hopping on board. A number of these challenges also involve some form of food. If you're a food innovator who's looking for the next interesting challenge to take up, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) may have something for you.

The NASA, in collaboration with Canada's CSA (Central Space Agency), has launched a 'Deep Space Food Challenge'. The one-of-a-kind competition seeks to find food production technologies which are sustainable in long duration missions to outer space.

Our cargo resupply missions can only go so far! That's why we need your help to design a food system to keep our astronauts feed during long duration space exploration.

Check out the @NASAPrize Deep Space Food Challenge: https://t.co/9mxtZXbwaC pic.twitter.com/izU8nSqPDc

— NASA Wallops (@NASA_Wallops) January 30, 2021

A short video explaining the purpose behind the challenge was shared by the official handle. The 56-second clip elaborated on how astronauts embarking on lunar space exploration missions usually rely on pre-packaged meals or resupply of food through shuttles from Earth.

Thus, creating a brand, new food production system with minimal input and nutritious output with minimal wastage can go a long way in fuelling longer duration space explorations. The challenge's focus is on identifying food production technologies that can help feed a crew of four astronauts and help fill food gaps for a three-year round-trip mission with no resupply required from Earth.

These innovative food production methods may also help communities on Earth living in harsh conditions and extreme climates. This could also help tackle food insecurity in the future, which is one of the biggest issues that loom large today. "Solutions identified through this Challenge could support these harsh environments, and also support greater food production in other milder environments, including major urban centres where vertical farming, urban agriculture and other novel food production techniques can play a more significant role," stated the Deep Space Food Challenge's official website.

.@NASA & @csa_asc are launching a Deep Space Food Challenge to develop food production tech in space.

Hey @GuyFieri, how about Diners, Drive-Ins, Dives & Deep Space? #STIdocs #Flavortown 🚀🥘

Read about it: https://t.co/fnz80uwpJT

See research: https://t.co/18q6RG3L2G pic.twitter.com/lSRTiiAFes

— NASA STI Program (@NASA_STI) January 28, 2021

Registrations for the challenge close on 28th May, and submissions are due 30th July, 2021. Winners of Phase 1 of the challenge will be announced in the month of September this year. The prize money for winners of Phase 1 can go up to USD 500,000 (Rs. 3.64 crores approximately). So, if you have an exciting idea to produce food which could help future space missions - you know what to do!

After The Chaos of 2020, Will Indoor Farming Be In Our Future?

VANCOUVER, Wash. — The year 2020 has forced a number of disruptions to our daily lives, so what if we have more years like it in the future? How will we make sure our communities can survive by getting vital resources, like food?

The answer may be growing inside an old Hewlett Packard plant at the Vancouver Tech Campus in Washington.

Forward Greens is probably not what you picture when you think “farm”: vertical floor to ceiling stacks of planters filled with microgreens and baby greens, growing under LED lights

Forward Greens, Vancouver, Wash.

“Rather than growing out in an outdoor field, we’re growing up,” says Forward Greens CEO and Founder, Ken Kaneko. “We’re able to control the temperature, the humidity, the airflow, as well as the lighting,” he says.
From arugula to kale to broccoli, everything growing inside this urban, indoor farm wouldn’t be growing outside on a chilly November day in the Pacific Northwest.

From start to finish, the whole process of farming is essentially done in one room. In just a week or two, the greens are on their way to grocery stores in Portland, Vancouver, and Seattle.

Kaneko, who had worked for Intel and more recently, Apple, founded Forward Greens in 2017 after a trip to Japan. There, he stumbled upon his first vertical farm.

“I thought, ‘man, it would be great if I can bring this back to the Pacific Northwest and essentially do it better, cheaper, and more efficiently,'” said Kaneko.

Kaneko says Forward Greens never uses any pesticides, fungicides or herbicides and it uses 95% less water and 99% less land than traditional outdoor farming. But, he says, it uses a lot of energy to power the lights.

“Any engineering problem has a balance of cost, time, environmental impact, but the whole mission of this business is to balance those in a positive way towards the environment,” Kaneko said.

So could this be the farming of the future?

OSU Professor of Horticulture, Gail Langellotto, is pretty certain that it’s not. “In the near future, I can’t imagine a future where only agriculture is indoor agriculture,” she says, pointing to the high start-up costs, the higher cost of labor, and the expensive and taxing energy use.

She says traditional, outdoor farming will be difficult to replace because of the efficiency, precision and scale the industry has mastered and is constantly improving.

But Langellotto adds that if we have more years like 2020, with the pandemic and destructive wildfires on top of climate change, indoor farming will be an asset. She says urban farming is robust to disruptions in the local food system.

“If there are some supply and transport issues that delay or limit the amount of food that can be brought into urban areas from more rural, further out regions, then you already have an urban food production system in the proximity of where the majority of people live,” Langellotto said.

After the chaos of 2020, will indoor farming be in our future? (KATU video){ }

Kaneko is encouraged by the fact that urban farms can be a huge asset, saying, “we don’t know what’s going to happen with respect to the wildfires, the pandemic, the climate, so we’re able to provide local and sustainable food regardless of all those parameters.”
And that may be why Kaneko says demand for indoor farms is increasing. In fact, he’s expanding and doubling production at the Vancouver location in the next couple months. But he’s looking even further ahead to an even brighter future.

He hopes to put a Forward Greens in every metropolitan area, so we don’t fall to the fate of those HP printers that used to be built where his plants now grow.

KATU2 ABC Forward Greens
by Wesleigh Ogle, Thursday, December 3rd 2020

Published by Dani Kliegerman, iGrow News