Boston’s Freight Farms Grows Greens In Shipping Containers

Boston’s Freight Farms Grows Greens In Shipping Containers

Imagine leafy greens growing in Boston’s bitter winter, or fresh herbs thriving in the rocky mountains of Colorado. This is all possible, by way of farming inside shipping containers. The Leafy Green Machine, a creation of Freight Farms of Boston, Massachusetts, provides a way to grow greens in the harshest of climates and in urban settings. 

Becoming A Business

It all started with Boston rooftops. Freight Farms co-founders Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman originally thought roof top greenhouses were the way to farm in an urban setting, but that proved difficult.

“There were challenges with infrastructure, not all city rooftops are uniform and it was not a viable way to grow a large amount of crops,” said Caroline Katsiroubas, Community Manager for Freight Farms. 

“Then the co-founders had the idea to grow produce in shipping containers,” Katsiroubas said, adding that the shipping container is a uniform structure where the growing environment could be controlled. The containers allow for year-round growing and vertical farming, which maximizes space for food production. 

The 40’ x 8’ x 9.5’ shipping container, dubbed the Leafy Green Machine, or LGM for short, is outfitted with a hydroponic growing system, innovative climate technology and growing equipment. At $82,000, the container also comes with an app with which to remotely monitor crop growth.

“You can see real-time data on the farm: air, water, nutrients, and plant growth,” explained Katsiroubas, adding that this is an attractive benefit to the farming operation.

“This appeals to a lot of customers, as it cuts down on the time they have to be at the farm, and removes certain variables that make farming challenging in urban or other environments,” described Katsiroubas. 

Growing Greens

“Smaller, compact crops such as leafy greens grow well in this setting,” explained Katsiroubas.

Think head lettuce, kale, swiss chard, herbs such as basil, thyme, mint and more.

“We are also experimenting with tomatoes, strawberries, squash and peppers,” said Katsiroubas, adding that while hydroponics has traditionally been associated with bland tasting produce, Freight Farms is challenging that notion.    

“We are able to create a crop recipe of sorts, where climate and nutrients are controlled to yield optimal tasting greens,” explained Katsiroubas. 

The end result?

“Mustard greens with incredible spicy flavor, arugula with a lot of punch,” described Katsiroubas. 

Growing Business

The company concept started in 2011 while the first few sales of the Leafy Green Machine occurred in 2013. Forty containers were sold in 2015, and that number is growing rapidly.

Success stories include Freight Farms in Montana, Colorado, downtown Boston, downtown Detroit, and in places such as city public high schools and universities, to name a few. 

“We are on track to add 150 farms to our network this year,” said Katsiroubas, adding that a Freight Farm shipping container can be found in at least 22 states. This method of farming is a perfect fit for certain areas or environments.

“For any place that is remote, or has limited access to fresh produce, or an area that only has access to incredibly expensive produce, this method of growing greens is ideal.”

For more information:

Caroline Katsiroubas

Freight Farms

+1 877 687 4326

caroline@freightfarms.com

www.freightfarms.com

Publication date: 5/5/2016
Author: Jennifer Harrison
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com

Vertical Farming Sprouts In Detroit's Brightmoor District

Vertical farming sprouts in Detroit's Brightmoor district

John Gallagher , Detroit Free Press 11:12 p.m. EDT May 2, 2015

Known as Artesian Farms, the venture is a rare example of vertical agriculture in the city -- growing food in trays stacked up to 14 feet tall to greatly increase the production capacity of any given space.

Detroit's urban farmers have proven some of the most innovative people in the city.

They've reclaimed vacant lots and learned how to bring fresh, nutritious food to neighborhoods in need of it.

Now two new ventures continue that innovation by introducing vertical farming systems into the city's mix.

One, known as Artesian Farms of Detroit in the Brightmoor district on the far west side, has begun to grow vegetables in a hydroponic system -- trays filled with water and nutrients -- stacked up to 14 feet tall.

The other, known as Green Collar Foods, set up its vertical racks last week in a corner of Eastern Market's newly renovated Shed 5. It uses an aeroponics system, in which nozzles mist a thin watery film on the roots of plants suspended in air inside trays.

Growing plants indoors inside cities has been done for a long time in various places around the world, including in the RecoveryPark project on Detroit's east side. Now adding vertical racks greatly increases the production capacity of any given project by taking advantage of vertical space.

"It doesn't necessarily take a huge building," Ron Reynolds, one of the partners in Green Collar Foods, said last week at Eastern Market. "You don't have to go to the city and say, 'I'd like that 50,000-square-foot building.' Effectively in 400 square feet you can have three stories up. So a lot of the buildings begin to open up for viability."

These vertical growing systems typify how urban farming has undergone rapid innovation in recent years. Practitioners around the world have learned to wring increased production from seemingly barren urban sites to bring fresh, nutritious food to city residents.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack visited Detroit recently and said that growing food inside cities could become an important part of regional food systems in a world beset by drought and other issues. Detroit, he added, is known far and wide as one of the centers of that movement.

"I think it's real and I think it's a great complement to the agriculture that takes part in other parts of the country," Vilsack said. "We face a very interesting challenge of feeding an ever-increasing world population when the land available for production will likely shrink. We have to have new and creative ways to produce the food to feed our people."

Artesian is the creation of Jeff Adams, a neighborhood resident who spent most of his career marketing automotive products and then spent a decade fund raising for nonprofits. A few years ago, he was inspired by Detroit's well-known west-side urban farmers like Riet Schumack and Malik Yakini.

"I was looking for entrepreneurial opportunities that could employ neighborhood people," he said last week. "The whole urban garden thing really peaked my interest."

He bought an empty industrial building in Brightmoor last August. It had been empty since 1998. He installed a system of vertical racks designed and produced by Green Spirit Farms of New Buffalo, Mich. Known as Vertical Growing Stations, the units are 14 to 16 feet high utilizing specially designed lighting that provides the right type of light at the right intensity for a good growing environment.

Each VGS can hold approximately 1,200 to 2,400 plants depending on the produce to be grown. With about 6,000 square feet of space in his building, Adams has enough room to install 40 of the vertical racks, which he estimates is the equivalent to about 20 acres of field growing. Adams can harvest 17 crops per year of a mix of salad greens including several types of leafy lettuce plus spinach, kale, and basil.

Muir and Rhazes lettuce grow under induction lamps at Artesian Farms, which the founder hopes to have fully operational by the end of the summer. (Photo: Jessica J. Trevino/Detroit Free Press)

For somebody who was trying to solve as many problems as possible, vertical farming seemed to offer the best opportunities.

"You look at what it means for our city -- transforming blight, employing local people, and then you look at how it affects the environment," he said. "This system can grow produce year round and uses about 90% less water than what is used where our big agriculture belts are in California and Arizona."

He hired a local Brightmoor woman, Yvette Martinez Evans, to work full time helping him tend to the plants. "I thought it was great because I always liked growing stuff in the outdoors," Evans said last week.

Unlike the vast majority of community gardens in Detroit, Artesian Farms is a for-profit entity, an L3C organization known as a social enterprise, where the profits go to support community needs. Initial funding for the project was provided by Impact T3 Investment Fund, Skillman Foundation, Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation and the Scott Brickman Family Trust.

Adams plans initially to distribute his produce in local farmers markets, but he's working on an agreement with the Whole Foods chain to sell his salad greens in the company's stores in metro Detroit.

"This will turn a pretty significant profit once it gets operational," he said.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.

The "Farm From A Box" Delivers Modern Agriculture To Places That Need It

A 2-acre Farm in a Box: Kits Deliver Off-grid Farming Components in Shipping Container

May 1, 2016 | Anne Craig

San Francisco-based Farm From a Box supplies all the components needed to create a two-acre off-grid farm,  packed in a shipping container that will then serve as a farm building. It recently announced a new partnership with Netafim, an Israel-based irrigation firm with offices in 120 countries, to supply the irrigation components. 

Farm From a Box is the brainchild of partners Scott Thompson and Brandi DiCarli. Their kits include renewable power systems, internet connectivity, basic farm tools, micro-drip irrigation systems and water pumps that can be adapted to fit either a ground well or municipal water supply. 

The concept was born in 2009 in Kisumu, Kenya, where Thompson and DiCarli worked together on creating a youth empowerment center using modified shipping containers set around a soccer field. Realizing that that area and many others around the world were in desperate need of a reliable supply of fresh, healthy food, they began to research and develop what they began to think of as “food sovereignty in a box,” applying the shipping container concept to sustainable agriculture.

The approach is market-based; Thompson and DiCarli intend to market Farm From a Box to aid agencies and multinationals that distribute food in hungry places, allowing the residents to establish self-sufficiency. A prototype, Adam, is up and running in Sonoma, California; the second is getting underway in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia. The kits incorporate Trojan batteries, Sierra Wireless connectivity systems, Grundfos pumps, and SMA solar technology. 

“Netafim has developed a complete custom kit that is specifically tailored to the Farm from a Box 2-acre system,” says DiCarli, “designed to provide growers with an easy-to-assemble, precise water delivery solution that lowers labor and maintenance costs while improving crop performance.”

According to Ze’ev Barylka, marketing director for Netafim, the partnership will advance the company’s goals to educate people about the potential of off-grid water solutions to support sustainable farming.

“We strongly believe that education is a key initiative for future adoption of water technologies in general and drip irrigation in particular,” Barylka says. “We believe that Farm from a Box has a lot of potential to connect with education institutions as they provide with a  turnkey ‘box’ that includes ‘all you need’ to irrigate a small field.”

Farm From a Box provides customers not just physical components, but also training. They purchase what the company half-jokingly calls a “Swiss Army Knife” kit for sustainable off-grid farming, along with know-how to help new farmers tackle the steep learning curve of permaculture technique.

“Farming is a complicated enterprise,” she says. “We want people to know how to maximize the income from that two acres and truly make this a vocational opportunity. We hope that with the right tools, the integrative technology, and the training, our product will empower people and encourage the next generation of farmers that the world so needs.”

Barylka says spreading that energy dovetails perfectly with what Netafim is all about.

“Farm from a Box provides an opportunity for Netafim to connect with developing markets across the world. Netafim is committed to delivering solutions to all farmers, small and big, growing commodity and high-value crops in developed and developing countries.”

The company was recognized by Ecowatch as one of their “Ten Coolest Eco Products of 2015.” According to DiCarli, every shipping container is highly customized to local needs and conditions on the ground.

“There are so many different variables that you can’t just copy and paste,” she says. “The basic template (which costs around $50,000) includes a renewable kit, a water system, and training, but we can plug in or take out the components that will fit the climate and conditions for the end user. That might be localized production for a school or community or a hyperefficient system for disaster relief. Whatever it is, our goal is to give people an easy jump start for growing off the grid.”

Will Philadelphia Become The Vertical Farming Capital

Business Apr. 30, 2016 08:47AM EST

Will Philadelphia Become the Vertical Farming Capital of the World?

• Lorraine Chow

With its muggy summers and freezing winters, Philadelphia isn't exactly known as an agricultural hotspot. But a resolution passed Thursday by Philadelphia City Council could put the City of Brotherly Love on the map as the next international green hub.

Will Philly's skyscrapers be home to urban farms? Vertical farms, which use height to maximize growth space in cities, have been proposed as a way to help bring jobs and local, sustainable food to city dwellers.

Local lawmakers are aiming to expand vertical and urban farming in the bustling metropolis, Philly.com reported.

"The most noble thing a human being can do is produce food for others," Councilman Al Taubenberger, who introduced the resolution, said at a news conference held at Metropolis Farms in South Philly. "Vertical farming is something very special indeed, and fits like a glove in Philadelphia."

As EcoWatch reported, Metropolis Farms is not only the first indoor hydroponic vertical farm in Philadelphia, it’s the first vegan-certified farm in the nation and the only known vertical farm to operate on the second floor of a building. By growing food locally, the farm slashes the distance food needs to travel to get to local kitchens, grocery stores and restaurants.

Vertical and urban farming can be attractive in a variety of ways compared to conventional farming. City-based farms reduce the distance between farmer to buyer, solving the problem of “food deserts,” where city dwellers have little or no access to affordable, high-quality, fresh food.

"By the year 2050 close to 80 percent of the world’s population will be living in urban centers," Emma Hansen of the Worldwatch Institute noted. "Our current farms mandate a paradigm shift to environmentally friendly and efficient urban food systems to support the population in a sustainable way."

Philadelphia already has a number of urban agriculture projects to promote sustainable local food, and more than 40 community gardens and orchards on park land.

But with vertical farms in particular, food can be produced with less water and takes up less space than traditional farming. These technologically innovative farms often feature multiple trays of plants stacked on top of each other. Instead of growing the plants in soil, a hydroponic system recirculates the water and nutrients that plants need to grow. These farms are often often lit with artificial lights to mimic the sun. Crops can be grown in skyscrapers, abandoned lots and even shipping containers.

Metropolis Farms President Jack Griffin said his farm is able to fit 13 acres' worth of food in only 1,600 square feet, according to CBS Philly.

"The opportunity is there. The buildings are there, and people looking for jobs are there," he said, according to Philly.com. He also envisions a school where people learn about vertical farming and network of "flash farms" that directly link neighborhoods, grocery stores and restaurants to fresh food.

Metropolis Farms—located “just minutes from the south Philly Italian market made famous in the Rocky movies,” as the venture points out on their website—uses artificial lighting, climate control and other patented farming techniques to grow edible plants such as lettuce basil, peppers and carrots 365 days a year. The harvest is sold to local restaurants and grocery stores like Whole Foods.

“Remember we don’t have the weather, when it snowed this April we were growing inside,” Griffin said. “We were growing food in January.”

CBS Philly reported that Griffin plans to expand into other empty warehouses across the city with the hope of becoming a world leader in vertical farming.

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Inside The High-Tech Farm Growing Kale In An Old Paintball Arena

Inside The High-Tech Farm Growing Kale In An Old Paintball Arena

This could be part of the future of farming.

04/26/2016 02:54 pm ET | Updated Apr 29, 2016

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Alexander C. Kaufman Senior Business Editor, The Huffington Post

NEWARK, New Jersey — David Rosenberg is trying to build an agricultural empire out of an old paintball arena in a blighted urban neighborhood about 45 minutes outside Manhattan.

Needless to say, Rosenberg, the chief executive of Aerofarms, an indoor farming startup growing organic leafy greens without sunlight or soil, has his work cut out for him.

But so far, the pieces seem to be falling into place.

Though limited, the current growing operation produces enough kale, watercress, arugula and other leafy greens to feed a few restaurants and ShopRite supermarkets in the area. Next month, the 12-year-old company is set to open its new 70,000-square-foot headquarters, just two blocks away. That project, which broke ground only two months ago, is transforming a former steel mill into the world’s largest indoor vertical farm.

“Our mission is to build farms in cities all over the world,” Rosenberg recently told The Huffington Post. “We are very much building the infrastructure not to build one, two or three farms but to build 20, 30 or 50 farms.”

Indoors farming has long been touted as a way to address two major problems. The first is macro-level and lofty: How will we, the Earth’s 7.4 billion (and counting) humans, go about feeding ourselves in a changing world? The second is more immediate: How do you get fresh, healthy produce to people in urban food deserts, where diet-related conditions like diabetes and obesity run rampant?

The answers to those questions could be a gold mine. By 2050, the world’s population is projected to rise to between 9 billion and 10 billion people. Those numbers, coupled with income growth across the world, could result in more than a 70 percent increase in demand for food by that year, according to a report by the World Bank. Making matters worse, the unpredictable and increasingly extreme weather, droughts and flooding that come of climate change are expected to grow more intense in the coming decades, as greenhouse gas emissions continue to warm the planet.

In places where extreme weather, flooding and desertification threaten agriculture — think sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia — farming techniques like those used by Aerofarms could take off.

“You have to look around the world and find out whose food supply is most threatened by climate change — it’s about who really needs it, versus who could probably survive at least another 100 years without urban agriculture dominating the landscape,” said Dickson Despommier, an emeritus professor of microbiology at Columbia University who hosts a podcast on indoor farming. “For the most part, farmers are unable to move their farms when the climate changes to the point where they can no longer grow what they were growing before.”

Rosenberg said there is a “50 percent chance” the company will announce its first overseas project by the middle of next year.

To be sure, Aerofarms is no panacea. After 12 years at it, the company seems to have created a solid model for growing nutrient-rich leafy greens in urban spaces. But it’s too small-scale to grow large cash crops like soybeans, corn and wheat — all of which are among the more environmentally taxing food sources. Plus, there are apparent obstacles to growing fruits and tubers. Consider this calculation that Stan Cox, a senior scientist at the nonprofit research group the Land Institute, offered in an essay for Alternet in February:  

Based on figures in a 2013 paper published by indoor plant-growth expert Toyoki Kozai of Japan’s Chiba University and on the assumption of efficient LED lighting, I estimate that plants like potato or tomato that produce a fleshy food product require about 1,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity for each kilogram of edible tissue they produce, not counting the water stored in the food.

That requirement approximates the annual electricity consumption of the average American home refrigerator — and that’s a big energy bill to produce just two and a quarter pounds of food dry matter. This kind of thing could not be scaled up very far.

Ultimately, the world’s looming agricultural crisis is going to require a patchwork of solutions. The sheer fact that they are indoors, protected from even the most volatile environments, gives farming units like Aerofarms’ serious potential in the long term. But in the short term, can this method provide a better alternative to greens harvested in the so-called “salad bowl of America” — that is, in Northern California, where most of the country’s arugula, kale and lettuce is grown?

Pared down to its bare essentials, Aerofarms operates on a straightforward aeroponic design, using mist and carefully regulated LED lighting to grow plants without soil or another substrate. Seeds are sown into reusable growing cloths, each made from about 24 recycled plastic bottles, that are then stretched over tray-like frames. After the seeds germinate, the contraption is inserted into one end of a two-story growing tower, where the roots are regularly misted with water infused with microbes and other nutrients the plants would normally suck from the dirt around their roots. The plants then embark on an assembly line of photosynthesis, traveling down the rows of the growing tower over the course of two weeks. When they emerge on the other end, each tray is bursting with full-size edible greens.

But Aerofarms’ produce isn’t like the stuff that’s sold in most stores after being plucked from fields in California. (For one things, the company only grows about half a dozen different crops, at least for now.) Aerofarms’ greens are grown to emphasize specific flavors and textures. The mizuna, for instance, has a mustardy kick. Aerofarms grew it that way. The baby kale is almost nutty. There was no bitter chemical residue to clean off before eating.

“We grow without pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or GMOs — we just give the plant what it wants at the root structure,” Rosenberg said. “They don’t need nutrients at the leaves, so there’s nothing to wash off.”

With its aeroponic technology, Aerofarms is betting that perfecting the leafy green is simply a matter of nurture over nature. There’s no need to tweak the DNA or add artificial chemicals, the company says, when you can create the ideal environment to promote certain traits in the plant.

In a conference room at the paintball-arena-turned-growing-facility — where Aerofarms grows the crops sold in Newark in three towers stacked two stories high with plants — co-founder Marc Oshima pinched a few sprigs of watercress and popped them into his mouth like an hors d’oeuvre.

“At home, we eat this instead of popcorn,” the chief marketing officer said, going back for seconds.

One of the main criticisms of indoor farming is that without soil or sun, flavor suffers. Aerofarms’ fixation on taste may prove a competitive advantage as a bevy of competitors crop up around the country.

“It’s a shame that today we take the most highly nutritious category — leafy greens — and we supplement it with a lot of really fatty foods like salad dressing,” Rosenberg said. “Part of what we want to bring to society, and bring awareness of, is these greens in and of themselves. They’re not just nutritious. They’re all harbingers of taste.”

Anyone who’s heard a seller at a farmers market or country fair talk about their crops should recognize the affection with which Rosenberg and Oshima tout theirs. But they’re just as much tech executives as they are farmers. Rosenberg started Aerofarms in 2004 after spending years working to reduce water waste with the architect and environmentalist William McDonough, a gig that made Rosenberg a regular in posh do-gooder circles like those at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Aerofarms purports to use 95 percent less water than traditional farms, and says it gets 75 times more crops per square foot of growing space than traditional field systems. To achieve that, the company has had to think of itself as a technology company as much as a farming firm.

“We’re spending big money on IT and our IT systems,” Rosenberg said. “We’re really calling it the heartbeat of the organization, in how it really touches on everything and pulls all the different pieces of the company together.”

Each of the three towers in the Newark facility is equipped with a circuit board, where sensors collect data and beam it back to the company’s servers.

“We had several ‘aha moments’ when we became Aerofarms — one of them was that, to be great on technology, we needed to be great on data,” Rosenberg said. “For a while, the company was selling farm equipment. But to be great on tech, you need good data. To get uncorrupted data, we needed to be the farmer. To be great at farming, we needed to be a leader in the technology space, because the industry is so new.”

CORRECTION: This article originally misstated that Aerofarms yields 75 percent more than crops per square foot compared to field farming. It is 75 times more. 

Philadelphia Aims To Become International Hub For Indoor Farming

April 28, 2016   By Stephanie Stahl

By Stephanie Stahl

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — On the CBS3 health watch, its vertical farming. Philadelphia aims to become an international hub for indoor growing, according to a resolution passed today by city council.

When growing produce we usually think of acres of farmland. Some say the next generation of farming will be in urban centers like Philadelphia, and you won’t need soil or the sun, just an old warehouse.

Welcome to vertical farming, where produce is grown inside, in specialized shelves that are stacked up vertically.

“We’re able to grow more food in less space,” said Jack Griffen “ we fit 13 acres in 1600 square feet.”

Inside this nondescript warehouse in South Philly is the prototype farm of the future.

“It’s a cool thing, I mean you know think about how many empty warehouses are in the Philadelphia region that could be creating jobs, that could be creating food for our local population,” said Jack Griffin the president of Metropolis Farms.

Philadelphia city council recognized Metropolis with resolutions to make the city an international hub for vertical farming.

The idea is “to establish Philadelphia as a promenade training center for this type of farming,” said Al Taubenberger.

“Remember we don’t have the weather, when it snowed this April we were growing inside,” Jack said. “We were growing food in January.”

The year round inside farm works by using artificial light. The light and the plants are grown in nutrient rich water, that’s constantly recycled.

“It’s the same nutrients as soil just in a cleaner fashion,” Jack said. “We’re vegan certified which means we have no pesticides, and I mean zero, no herbicides, and no manure, manure being one of the number one causes of food poisoning.”

They can grow everything from lettuce, and basil, to peppers and carrots.

“That’s about as fresh as it’s ever going to get.”

Jack has plans to branch out into empty warehouses all over the city, with hopes of becoming a world leader in vertical farming.

He says he’s addressed a variety of criticisms about vertical farming, by creating systems that are cost effective and use less electricity. Jack sells the produce to local restaurants and places like Whole Foods.

For more information, visit http://www.metropolisfarmsusa.com

Stephanie Stahl

Filed Under: HealthWatch, Stephanie Stahl, vertical farming

Oak Cliff Students Use Vertical Farming Lesson To Help Community

Oak Cliff Students Use Vertical Farming Lesson To Help Community

Students from Zumwalt Middle School are learning aquaponics, due in part to Oak Cliff being a "food desert." Demond Fernandez reports.

Demond Fernandez, WFAA 9:16 PM. CDT April 21, 2016

DALLAS – Plants and students can make a winning combination. That is the case, at least, at Dallas Independent School District’s Sarah Zumwalt Middle School.

Students have been learning to grow foods from their classroom.

The students are harvesting mustard greens, kale and fruits using a unique tower garden system.

"We get to help the community out with fresh fruits and vegetables,” said eighth grader Kerrion Martin.

The students are have been learning about vertical farming. They are planting seeds and harvesting vegetables in a tower garden using an aquaponics system.

The class says the vertical farming project started with a provocative discussion and lesson. The students were looking into their Oak Cliff community being a food desert.

"Around here, we don't have a lot of healthy grocery stores,” Detaria Wilburn said. “We don't have a lot of healthy foods… We don't have places where they sell fresh foods, fresh fruits, vegetables."

Wilburn and her classmates are now becoming game changers with green thumbs. Tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers, and strawberries are becoming staples grown in the tower garden.

Alaric Overbey of Vertical Life Farms donated the tower garden to Zumwalt. The local entrepreneur says he saw an opportunity to help teach the teens farming skills and about healthy food options in an urban setting.

“We grew this right here in our school,” Wilburn said as she showed off a bag of fresh salad mix. “So, it’s pretty amazing.”

Each day, the students check on their plants. Every two weeks they are bagging salads for teachers to sample.

Students say the project is helping them change their own eating habits while helping others.

Copyright 2016 WFAA

Wind-Powered Vertical Skyfarms Look To A More Sustainable Future For Farming

What if the future of farming took root in the city rather than in the countryside? London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners explores that idea with Skyfarm, a hyperboloid tower that combines different farming techniques - from aquaponics to traditional soil-based planting methods - in a bamboo-framed vertical farm designed to produce its own clean energy. The civic project was the 2014 winner of the World Architecture Festival’s Future Projects Experimental category and was praised by the jury as a “thorough, believable, and beautiful project.

• Inspired by the 2015 Milan Expo theme “feed the world,” Skyfarm was developed to help solve the global food crisis, which may be exacerbated if traditional food production fails to keep up with skyrocketing population growth. As an alternative to traditional land-intensive farming, the Skyfarm grows food vertically rather than horizontally, and can be integrated into high-density urban environments. The multi-story tensegrity structure would be made with a light bamboo frame optimized for solar exposure and efficient water distribution.

The scalable and adaptable structure’s upper levels support different kinds of agriculture including aquaponics, which produce crops and fish in a near closed-loop system. The base of the tower can be converted into a market, restaurant, or learning space to educate the public about the farm. Water tanks and wind turbines top the tower. The structure can also be altered for use in different climates; in cooler climates, for example, a double skin enclosure and heating can be applied to optimize growing conditions.

“While the upfront costs of Skyfarm are higher than standard industrial scale agriculture, the ability to grow produce with a short shelf life, such as strawberries, spinach and lettuce, around the year and close to market without costly air-freighting, makes it an attractive, sustainable proposition,” wrote the architects.

This German Invention Puts An Actual Mini Farm At The End Of Your Supermarket Aisle

Infarm Berlin/YouTube

This German invention puts an actual mini farm at the end of your supermarket aisle

Gives a whole new meaning to 'fresh produce'.

PETER DOCKRILL

1 APR 2016

We all know that we should be including as many fresh vegetables as possible in our diets, but the fact is that the energy and environmental costs of growing and then transporting vegetables from the farm to the supermarket can stack up pretty high.

Now one German company has come up with an interesting way of tackling the problem, designing miniature farm units that are so small and self-contained, they can be installed at the end of a conventional supermarket aisle.

Kräutergarten, meaning "herb garden", is the brainchild of vertical farming startup Infarm, which is rolling out these mini farms as part of an experimental pilot with Metro Group, a German retail chain.

"Pretty much any type of greenhouse needs scale to be economic and efficient," Infarm co-founder Guy Galonska told Adele Peters at Fast Company. "In our case, the technology we developed is kind of a building-block approach, and this building block reaches efficiencies that are much higher… It works at a very small scale, just a few square metres. So it makes a lot of sense in your neighbourhood supermarket scale."

Like other vertical farm approaches we've seen in the US and the UK, Infarm's systems take advantage of things like year-round production, low water usage, and pesticide-free techniques to deliver a low-cost, low-impact means of farming greens.

In the modular, configurable units, greens and herbs literally grow in one spot until they're ready for picking. Unlike other greenhouse systems, seedlings and more mature plants aren't moved around at all, meaning the boxes need to make clever use of every available millimetre of space inside.

Right now, only one of these farms is operating in a special supermarket designed for chefs and wholesale customers, but the company intends to begin mass-manufacturing units for mainstream outlets before the end of the year. Aside from the energy savings and environmental benefits of cutting out veggie transport from farms to where they're sold, Infarm says it also makes for a revitalised way of looking at the food you buy.

"We got many interesting responses from chefs who saw vegetables they know – because they use them every day – but they'd never seen the plants at 15 days old," says Galonska. "It really engages people. You're used to having kind of a boring experience in the grocery store. You come and get your things. Here you see a farm – it's a piece of farm in the supermarket."

The pilot unit is focusing on herbs and specialty greens including mizuna and wasabi mustard greens, but Infarm says the same boxes could easily grow produce such as eggplants, tomatoes, and chili peppers. In conjunction with an app that lets customers order the vegetables they want to buy, it's a pretty unique alternative to perusing the stock on offer down at your local grocer.

"We call this farming as a service," says Galonska. "It's similar to the software world… where we sell the technology at relatively low prices, and then provide all the supplies and additional services, like the software, for example."

Infarm hopes all kinds of supermarkets will look at installing the mini farms, and if the idea takes off, it could help transform the assumption that vertical farming and other approaches to urban agriculture aren't a robust alternative to today's high-yield but high-impact agricultural practices.

"[I]f you look forward five, 10 years from now, you see the rate of technology that is expanding, evolving. We definitely see how vertical farming can supply many other things such as rice, soybeans, certain types of fruits," says Galonska. "Will it replace completely all traditional agriculture? It will take some time. But Mars, for example, will be vertical farming only."

Study Finds Philips LED Lights Provide Improved Energy Efficiency and Production for Growing Food Crops in Space

Study Finds Philips LED Lights Provide Improved Energy Efficiency and Production for Growing Food Crops in Space

SOMERSET, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Philips Lighting, a Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX, PHIA) company and global leader in lighting, has collaborated with The University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) to test energy efficient ways to grow food that will help feed astronauts on missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. A recent study, conducted over a nine week period, found that replacing water-cooled high-pressure sodium (HPS) systems with energy efficient LED lighting from Philips in a prototype lunar greenhouse resulted in an increased amount of high-quality, edible lettuce while dramatically improving operational efficiency and use of resources. Lettuce grown under Philips LED modules achieved up to 54 grams/kWh of fresh weight, edible lettuce compared to lettuce grown under a high pressure sodium system which achieved only 24 grams/kWh of fresh weight, edible lettuce. This represents an energy savings of 56 percent.

“The lunar greenhouses equipped with Philips LED modules provided the light needed to produce the same amount of indoor crops that the specialized water-cooled sodium systems provide while significantly decreasing the amount of electrical energy used,” said Gene Giacomelli, Ph.D and CEAC Director. “Findings from this study are critical in that not only can it be applied to growing food in space but can be applied to farming techniques in places where there is a shortage of water and good agricultural land right here on this planet.”

Philips GreenPower LED toplighting was installed and programmed with a customized “light recipe” developed by plant specialists at Philips to optimize the results. Light recipes are formulated by taking into account a variety of factors including light spectrum, intensity, uniformity and relative position of the lamp to plant canopy. These are combined to develop specific plant characteristics such as compactness, color intensity and branch development.

In addition, the LED modules, which create less concentrated heat loads than HPS lamps, even without water cooling, can be placed closer to the plants resulting in uniform light distribution throughout the greenhouse. This ensures all plants receive the same level and quality of light, resulting in better, more uniform plant quality and a more predictable yield. The Philips LED systems also cool independently, which means no additional investment is required in cooling water distribution.

“Dr. Giacomelli and his team at CEAC have been on the cutting edge of pioneering research that is uncovering new ways to grow crops in closed and controlled environments. Results from this study will not only impact growing crops in space but will provide tangible sustainability benefits for indoor farming on our own planet,” commented Blake Lange, Business Development Manager of the Philips City Farming Division. “We know that it is becoming more difficult for traditional farming practices to keep up with the demand for high-quality, locally grown food, particularly in areas of high population density and with local water shortages. The work we are doing is focused on driving innovation of new farming technologies that allow food crops to grow in indoor environments, absent of natural light and in close proximity of cities and major population centers, thus reducing the distance from farm to fork.”

“NASA has been working with universities for over 25 years to discover how the use of LEDs can support plant growth in closed environments. Over that time we have used patented LED technology as part of the Astroculture plant growth chambers for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS), NASA’s ground based Habitat Demonstration Unit, as well as NASA’s VEGGIE plant unit on the ISS,” said Ray Wheeler, a NASA plant physiologist. “It is fascinating to see how LED plant lighting has expanded so rapidly around the world and continues to further develop as we have seen most recently with the Mars-Lunar Greenhouse Project at the University of Arizona.”

About the Study
The project was completed over a six month period by a team led by Dr. Gene Giacomelli within the Mars-Lunar Greenhouse created by Sadler Machine Co. During a nine week period, four harvests of lettuce heads weighing 5 to 6 ounces were analyzed. All plant production and growing practices remained constant between two distinct growing systems—LEDs with the specially developed light recipes from Philips Lighting versus a traditional high pressure sodium system, which included a glass water jacket for removing the concentrated heat from the lamp bulb.

About the University of Arizona CEAC
The University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center located in Tucson, Arizona is focused on the science and engineering of maximizing plant production within controlled environments. The Mars-Lunar Greenhouse project is a NASA collaboration supported by the Arizona-NASA Steckler Space Grant, which supports university research and technology development activities to achieve innovative research and expanded technology applications.

About Philips Lighting
Philips Lighting, a Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) company, is the global leader in lighting products, systems and services. Our understanding of how lighting positively affects people coupled with our deep technological know-how enable us to deliver digital lighting innovations that unlock new business value, deliver rich user experiences and help to improve lives. Serving professional and consumer markets, we sell more energy efficient LED lighting than any other company. We lead the industry in connected lighting systems and services, leveraging the Internet of Things to take light beyond illumination and transform homes, buildings and urban spaces. In 2015, we had sales of EUR 7.4 billion and employed 33,000 people worldwide. News from Philips Lighting is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.

Read more:  http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2876870#ixzz4J3BuIQzP

Contacts

Philips Lighting
Melissa Kanter, 732-563-3994
melissa.kanter@philips.com

IKEA Launches Indoor Garden That Can Grow Food All Year-Round

If you’ve always wanted to grow your own veggies and herbs, but don’t have a yard where you can set up a garden, IKEA has the perfect product for you. The furniture retailer just unveiled its new KRYDDA/VÄXER hydroponic garden, which allows anyone to easily grow fresh produce at home. Check out the video: https://youtu.be/Sv9wD2HNSnA

The system allows customers to sprout and grow plants without any soil. Seeds can be sprouted using the absorbent foam plugs that come with the system, which keeps them moist without over-watering. Once the seeds have germinated, you can simply transfer the entire plug into its own pot and fill it with a scoop of water-absorbing pumice stones. These pots fit into a growing tray equipped with a solar lamp, providing year-round nourishment for the plants even in rooms without direct sunlight. (Or, if you choose to do things the old-fashioned way, you can simply place the tray in a convenient window.) The growing tray is even equipped with a built-in water sensor to help you ensure your plants are neither under- or over-watered.

IKEA claims the system is so simple that anyone — regardless of their experience with gardening — can successfully use it. While it’s not yet clear how much the set will cost, IKEA plans to launch the indoor gardening set in April. It’s worth noting that this is not the first indoor hydroponic garden to hit the market, although it may be a good option for people who aren’t exactly sure where to get started.

While the new system is a departure from IKEA’s usual catalog of items like bookshelves and tables, it’s in keeping with the company’s trend toward sustainability and away from a traditional retail business model. IKEA’s head of sustainability famously proclaimed earlier this year that the Western world had hit “peak home furnishings” and spoke about helping customers live more eco-friendly lives. Hopefully that means more products like this compact indoor garden are on the horizon.

MSU Leases Downtown Silos to Urban Farming Startup

Two clusters of downtown silos owned by Missouri State University could soon be used to grow lettuce, mushrooms and other vegetables.

The governing board of MSU voted Wednesday to lease the 21 silos to a Springfield startup company, Vertical Innovations, which plans to use water-based methods to grow food.

"We want to see if we can redefine urban farming," said David Geisler, manager and general counsel for the company. "Our interest is very high. We are very much looking forward to putting a new twist on a staple in the agriculture industry in his country."

If the "vertical farming" project is successful, the company hopes to replicate the effort in other abandoned storage silos.

"They see this project as a first step, to see if their technology will work in a silo environment," said Allen Kunkel, director of MSU's Jordan Valley Innovation Center, which is adjacent to the silo clusters. "They hope to duplicate this to other properties in the Midwest that are sitting vacant."

Kunkel said the company could gain a "marketing advantage" if it's able to grow food year-round in a safe, controlled environment.

"We are excited about it," Kunkel said. "It's great to take an old agriculture facility and turn it into something new."

The 21 silos are located in the 300 block of East Phelps Street and the 400 and 500 blocks of North Boonville Avenue. There are eight silos, which stand more than 100 feet tall, adjacent to MSU's Jordan Valley Innovation Center. The other 13 silos and an elevator shaft, which exceeds 210 feet in places, are just south of the others and part of the old MFA facility.

"They are a link to our past," Geisler said. "We're just seeing if we can bring them into the 21st century."

MSU acquired the silos in the early and late 2000s, and they have largely set empty except for rotting grain. The silos include 24,650 square feet and are being leased "as is" with the understanding that the company will clean up and rehabilitate the structures.

The five-year lease agreement, which can be extended up to 35 years, will cost the company $41,950 a year. The company is expected to invest between $500,000 to $1 million to get the project started, Geisler said.

As part of the initial lease, which starts March 1 and runs through early 2021, the company is expected to clean up the silos. That cleanup will include checking for any lead paint and asbestos.

Geisler said after that, the company plans to embark on a feasibility study for its aquaponic and hydroponic methods — which include cultivating plants in water — in a silo or two.

He said the inner mechanics of the silos, which are constructed to move grain upward and downward, should help with distributing the water through the structures. If the test is successful, the project would slowly expand to the other silos.

The earliest vegetables could be produced is the fall.

"I'm pretty excited about this, not only because it's an opportunity to get those silos in better shape and looking better, but it's a real opportunity for our agricultural students to engage in this concept of urban farming," said MSU board vice chair Joe Carmichael. "It's just a real neat project."

Jim Baker, vice president for research and economic development and international programs, said agriculture students and faculty are eager to engage in the project, through hands-on learning and research.

"It's a unique opportunity to try something radically different on vertical farming, which is kind of an interesting technological challenge," Baker said. "The students are very intrigued by it.

"If this concept works, there's going to be a lot of good job creation locally and it's going to spread ... if it works."

By Claudette Riley

Is Urban Farming Only For Rich Hipsters?

Is Urban Farming Only For Rich Hipsters?

Farms are springing up in cities across Europe, but if they exclude lower income groups they’ll do little to help shift towards sustainable food system

Gina Lovett

Monday 15 February 2016 07.35 EST

Spending on ethical food and drink products – including organic, Fairtrade, free range and freedom foods – hit £8.4bn in the UK in 2013, making up 8.5% of all household food sales.

By leveraging environmental credentials, such as local, sustainable and transparent production, a new wave of urban agriculture enterprises are justifying a premium price. But while a higher price point might better reflect the true cost of food production and help build a viable business, it can also exclude lower income groups, fuelling perception that local, sustainably produced food is the preserve of food elitists. 

Making urban grown produce affordable

“This is a real challenge,” says Kate Hofman, CEO and co-founder of London-based aquaponics enterprise GrowUp Urban Farms, which produces fish, salads and herbs in unused city spaces to sell wholesale. Unit 84 – its aquaponic, vertical farm – is housed in an industrial warehouse in east London. Launched in autumn last year, it has a projected annual production of 20 tonnes of greens, salads, and herbs (enough for 200,000 salad bags) and four tonnes of tilapia (cichlid fish). It sells its produce as wholesale to local restaurants and grocers.

“Food is a commodity, and we have to make the business work. Of course, we are growing more expensive things [such as micro-greens] with a bigger margin for a customer who has more to spend, but we are trying to grow other affordable things like mixed salad, and get those into retailers that are widely accessible,” says Hofman. GrowUp Urban Farms does not share wholesale prices but, as an example, customers can currently buy 50g of peashoots through Farmdrop for £1.10 compared to £1 for the same weight on Sainsbury’s website.

As the business develops, Hofman is aiming to produce premium micro-greens for Michelin-starred restaurants that in turn can, she says, support the expansion of more affordable salads and herbs. 

Accessible technology

Erez Galonska, founder and CEO of Berlin-based Infarm which sells a range of modular, app-controlled, indoor hydroponic growing systems, agrees that accessibility is important.

A big part of Infarm’s focus, according to Galonska, is democratising growing technologies to produce high quality produce at affordable prices. “Anyone [shops, restaurants, schools and hospitals] should be able to have their own farm, and grow their own food. The first ones to do it are obviously the early adopter types but, in principle, there is no reason for it not to become a standard.”

Berlin’s Metro Cash & Carry supermarket, part of the Metro Group wholesale chain, has already implemented the Infarm hydroponics system in store, growing herbs, radish and greens which Infarm says will be available at a price comparable to Metro’s other fresh goods. Infarm will begin targeting businesses globally this year. 

Workforce diversity

Swiss aquaponics enterprise Urban Farmers – which sells its urban growing system and raises tilapia, micro-greens, salads and herbs – has taken over the rooftop floors of De Schilde, a former Philips TV and phone set factory in The Hague. It aims to produce 45 tonnes of vegetables and 19 tonnes of tilapia annually from summer 2016. Other enterprises including a microbrewery are expected to follow.

Tycho Vermeulen – a horticulture researcher from Wageningen University who has worked to attract more urban agriculture enterprises to become tenants of De Schilde – is concerned about diversity of the urban farming workforce. “It’s just an observation, but the tendency for urban agriculture entrepreneurs is to be white and middle-class,” he says.

 Urban Farmers pilot rooftop farm in Basel , based in the Dreispitz area south of Basel, just a few tram stops from the centre of the city. Photograph: Raphi See (Raphael Seebacher)/Urban Farmers

For urban agriculture to move beyond serving a niche group of people and make a real impact on the global food system, it will have to engage a wider demographic. This has been the driver behind GrowUp’s education and training programme in the London borough of Newham. 

According to Hofman, Newham has “one of London’s highest unemployment rates ... There’s a real need for job opportunities [with companies] that are prepared to invest in training young people with a poor history of educational attainment”.

GrowUp has created roles specifically for young local people with a history of poor educational attainment, training them as aquaponics technicians for commercial food production and developing their skills in planning crops and monitoring quality. Hofman hopes that they will stay and develop with the business as it expands.

Wider inequalities in the food system

For some the challenges around equality in urban agriculture are simply a reflection of the global food system’s wider issues. Patrick Holden, founding director and CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, says, for example, that many of those working in the food sector are paid poorly and as a result, “the people who produce our food can’t afford good food”.

Holden hopes the interest in urban food will end up benefitting the whole of society in the future. “There’s a whole generation for whom urban food growing is becoming a major interest. These kinds of food revolutions tend to be led by people who have more information, and maybe more disposable income, but that’s not to say they’re not tapping into something of interest to all sections of society,” he says.

Loudoun Farm Family Is Growing In New Directions

By Jim Barnes January 18

The Virts family has been engaged in traditional farming (think heavy equipment, rigid growing seasons and cornfields stretching for acres) since it settled in Loudoun County in the late 18th century. Twelve generations later, things are beginning to change.

Donald Virts, who farms 1,000 acres in northern and western Loudoun, decided that he had to adapt his methods to evolving economic and environmental conditions. His new business model, which he is introducing at CEA Farms north of Purcellville, embraces concepts such as hydroponics (growing crops in water), controlled environment farming, renewable energy sources and marketing directly to consumers.

Virts, 56, said his family grew traditional crops such as corn and soybeans when he was growing up, as well as raising cattle for milk and beef.

He said that for decades, he followed a similar model but that doing so increasingly became a struggle. He had trouble finding workers who were willing to put in the required hours for wages he could afford.

“If I couldn’t do it by myself, I couldn’t do it,” Virts said. “That’s not good. You can’t make a living doing everything by yourself.”

He also realized that the costs of land and equipment had grown too high and that profits were too small.

“I couldn’t keep fighting that any longer in Loudoun County,” he said. “So I had to do something.”

In fall 2014, Virts built a greenhouse on his property at Purcellville Road and Route 9. The controlled environment allows him to grow tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, cucumbers and other produce year-round. The greenhouse increased his yield and reduced water consumption.

“The general rule is that you get 50 to 80 percent more volume per acre using 30 to 50 percent less water,” he said. By growing the plants vertically in racks, mounted one above another, Virts is able to make the best use of the space, he said.

Instead of using soil, Virts grows his plants in water, feeding them with a fertilizer solution. This eliminates the need for chemicals to kill pests and weeds, and gives him maximum control over what goes into the plants, he said.

Light, temperature, ventilation and even the pollinators can be controlled inside the greenhouse, Virts said. Every month or two, he puts in a box of bees to pollinate the plants.

CEA Farms — the name stands for controlled environment agriculture — is the most diversified hydroponics operation in the region, said Kellie Boles, Loudoun’s agricultural development officer.

“The fact that he’s growing strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers is just extraordinary,” Boles said.

Virts decided that another way to increase his profits would be to sell his produce directly to customers. Hoping to capitalize on the growing number of tourists who are flocking to Loudoun’s wineries, he opened a farm store in the fall next to the greenhouse to sell produce from his farm.

The store also sells organically grown produce from other local suppliers, as well as beef, pork and lamb from livestock raised nearby. It houses a kitchen and an informal dining area where customers can eat freshly prepared sandwiches made from the meats and produce sold there.

“When I cook these burgers and serve them to people, as soon as they eat it, they come over and buy some [packaged meat], because of the flavor,” Virts said. “And when they put a slice of these tomatoes and a piece of lettuce on it, I’ve got a customer for life.”

Virts’s long-term plan includes adding several greenhouses and powering them from renewable sources such as water, solar energy and wind. He thinks his store will be able to handle the yield from all of the greenhouses.

“That’s the ultimate goal of what my family and I are trying to do here,” he said. “Everything we grow here on our farms, we want to market [directly] to the public.”

Barnes is a freelance writer.

Hydroponics: A Farming Revolution

 

Hydroponics: A Farming Revolution

By: Stacy Delikat

POSTED: DEC 25 2015 06:34PM EST

Inside a 300,000 square foot greenhouse in Riverhead LI, a farming revolution is growing.
But its not 'what' is being grown.  It's how and when it is grown. 

When most traditional farmers in our area wrap up their growing seasons in late fall, Carl Gabrielsen is just getting started

There is a tremendous market out there. 15 million people within a 40, 50 mile radius and we can't feed them, we can’t feed ourselves anymore. But is this changing that? It's definitely changing that.”

Gabrielsen's family has grown flowers at their farm since the 1950s. However, they used to take the winter off.
Then a few years ago, Carl discovered a method that would enable him to produce viable crops in the offseason...regardless of the weather

"Hydroponic is done exclusively in water” he said.

Hydroponic farming, growing plants indoors, without soil, originated more than 60 years ago, but it was only recently the practice took off

Dickson Depommier is a Professor of Public Health at Columbia University and the author of  "The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century."

“Hydroponic farming in general has been on the upswing in general, particularly because of severe weather patterns” he said.  "This is a high speed bullet train."

Growing hydroponically allows farmers to cheat the seasons. 
But it's also brought fresh produce to places where there'sno room to grow the traditional way.
Depommier helped create the concept of Vertical Farming, which is just what it sounds like...Growing food from the bottom up.

It's happening around the world, like in Newark, where one of the world's largest vertical farms, Newark Urban Farms, just opened this fall.

"There is nothing you can't grow hydropinically" Depommier said.

Out in Riverhead, Gabrielsen Farms is producing up to 6000 heads of lettuce a week.  As well as greens like bok choy and herbs like basil and parsley.

As with any kind of farming, it starts with a seed. There are also no pesticides.

Gabrielsen uses insects to control the population of damaging aphids

"Years ago, if you saw, lets say, an aphid, you would get out the pesticides and just blast away, ya know? Now we release parasitic wasps, they'll hatch and just seek out the aphids" Gabrielsen said.

As Gabrielsen's lettuce winds up in supermarkets and restaurants on Long Island, and Vertical Farming begins to serve more produce-starved urban communities, Hydroponic farming is feeding global demand for healthy locally grown food year round.

And one additional note, most of the Gabrielsen Farm Greenhouse is actually powered by solar energy.

AeroFarms Raises $20 Million for High-Tech Urban Agriculture

AeroFarms Raises $20 Million for High-Tech Urban Agriculture

AeroFarms Inc. has raised $20 million in a Series B round of venture funding to build more of its “aeroponic vertical farms.” The high-tech indoor farms use 95% less water than conventional, commercial field farms, according to founder and Chief Executive David Rosenberg.

Wheatsheaf Group led the investment in the agtech company, joined by earlier backers GSR Ventures, MissionPoint Capital and Middleland Capital.

With corporate headquarters in Newark, N.J., AeroFarms grows and sells about 20 different leafy greens such as kale, arugula and watercress.

Its farms run on proprietary systems, including equipment that delivers fertilizer only to a plant’s roots and a network of software-controlled, LED growing lights.

The company’s engineers and horticultural scientists also use cameras, sensors and algorithms to collect and analyze data about their crops. They know what tweaks can cause different seeds to grow into plants with certain attributes, like a more peppery flavor, for example, or a level of tenderness in a leaf.

That means AeroFarms is able to give its buyers custom greens for their menus.

AeroFarms’ systems also allow the company to grow greens without any soil, pesticides, fungicides or herbicides. Its produce is ready to be eaten or sold without any washing. The CEO said washing is, surprisingly, what introduces or spreads “all the little nasties…that can cause foodborne illnesses and spoilage.”

Besides harming consumers, outbreaks of foodborne illnesses can cost food businesses dearly. In a recent example, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. warned investors that an e.coli outbreak would cut into sales and earnings for the quarter.

To date, AeroFarms has sold its greens on a white-label basis to grocery stores and food-services businesses. Given the funding, the company plans to launch its own consumer-facing brand in 2016. It also plans to build out more vertical farms including a massive new facility in Newark.

Read VentureWire for the full story including insights from AeroFarms board member and investor Mark Cirilli with MissionPoint Capital. 

Write to Lora Kolodny at lora.kolodny@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @lorakolodny

Urban Farms: The New Frontier for Female Farmers

Urban Farms: The New Frontier for Female Farmers

By Trina Moyles on December 3, 201

Vanessa Hanel in her basement farm, where she grow micro greens.

Vanessa Hanel is a twenty-nine year old female farmer living in the heart of grain-and-cattle country in Calgary, Alberta. Hanel didn’t grow up on a farm, but developed a passion for agriculture in her early twenties. After sowing her first handful of seeds in a community garden plot, she grew hooked on growing food and, eventually, farming.

Hanel isn’t alone.

Studies prove that increasing numbers of women are getting into farming in North America. But while more women are pitching in on the farm, the old Farmer Joe stereotype still has a grip on the reins of rural food production. The statistics don’t lie: Fewer women own farmland than men. It’s estimated that only 27 percent of farm operators in Canada are women. Numbers are even lower in the U.S., with a mere 14 percent of farms headed by women. What’s causing the major gender imbalance in agriculture today?

We could blame history, which has largely defined who drives the tractor in society. More than a century ago, European farmers settled in North America and dropped seed into the soil, raising their sons into farmers and their daughters into “farmer’s wives.” Culture maintained the practice of transferring land and farming knowledge from father to son, while women accessed land through their husbands. Women’s efforts on family farms around food—growing, preserving, preparing, and distributing—are often celebrated in history. But rarely do we talk about how the tradition of inheritance plays a part in the small percentage of women who own farmland today.

Rarely do we talk about how the tradition of inheritance plays a part in the small percentage of women who own farmland today.

For one, it’s never been more expensive for aspiring female farmers to secure land. (Or, really, all farmers.) In Canada, the value of land increased by 113 percent from 2000 to 2012, while in the U.S., the cost of farmland in Iowa jumped 31 percent  in a single year alone. In 2015, the United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,020 per acre.

“I don’t think I’ve ever considered owning farmland,” admits Hanel.

Instead of facing the improbability of purchasing land and equipment necessary to farm—which can cost upwards of $1.5 million dollars—the solution for the young urbanite, like Hanel, could be looking within the city—or even in her own home. In early 2015, Hanel started up Micro YYC, an urban farming and micro greens operation in Calgary. She bypassed the barrier of accessing land altogether by “farming” in her basement, investing only $3,000 in industry shelves, grow lights, seed trays, and seeds. “Compared to buying land and things like farm machinery, it was peanuts,” says Hanel. “When I ventured into [farming] on my own, focusing on micro greens just seemed like the most doable thing—no buying, no borrowing, no rent, no weather issues, and I could start right away in the middle of winter.”

Hanel’s approach to farming in the city has paid off. Moving into her third year as a grower and business owner, her creativity and entrepreneurship has already turned a profit.

Plus, Hanel’s trying to shake up micro-green production in Calgary, forgoing growing the common alfalfa and pea shoots to experiment with niche varieties like basil, chervil, kale, red cabbage, and mustard greens. She tends the shoots from home, watering, weeding, and trouble-shooting against mold, and packages her harvest into spicy and mild mixes for weekly sale at the Gull Valley Greenhouse’s booth at the Calgary Farmers’ Market. With more than 10,000 people frequenting the market every week, she’s able to sell around 200 units and gross $500 to $800 a week. Hanel is also cultivating relationships with local chefs. Her basil shoots are featured in an exquisite tomato salad at Taste, a trendy kitchen and lounge in Calgary.

Hanel isn’t deterred by gender dynamics. She’s forging ahead, carving out new possibilities for women to break barriers of accessing land to grow food in the city.

Overall, statistical analysis of the numbers of female urban farm operators in North America is still lacking. But a recent article by The New York Times that interviewed 19 urban farms in New York City reported that 15 of those farms—nearly 80 percent—were led by women. To date, Hanel is one of the only female farmers running her own operation in Calgary, though she hopes it’s just the beginning for other women to follow her lead.

“Even though I am outnumbered by my male peers, I have experienced kindness and support from others in the field, even my competitors,” says Hanel. “This is one of the great things about being involved in a food movement. Having shared values means that, on some level, we are all working together. Urban farming isn’t easy, but if you have the drive to do it, there’s so much opportunity to succeed—and you don’t need to own land to do it.”

While the city offers alternatives to the conventional farm model, the more insidious gender stereotyping about “who can farm” still remains rooted in societal attitudes. But Hanel isn’t deterred by gender dynamics. She’s forging ahead, carving out new possibilities for women to break barriers of accessing land to grow food in the city.

“There will always be people, not necessarily only men, who will question what I could possibly know about growing food, or owning a business,” says Hanel. “But I feel confident to say that I’m doing it successfully.”

The "Farm From A Box" Delivers Modern Agriculture To Places That Need It

The "Farm From A Box" Delivers Modern Agriculture To Places That Need It

BEN SCHILLER 11.30.15 8:07 AM

The Farm from a Box contains everything needed to run a small, off-the-grid farm: solar panels for power, water filtration equipment, pumps for irrigation, and decent tools. There's even an on-board computer for land mapping and soil monitoring.

Developed in California, the box is an all-in-one kit designed to spread modern farming techniques to where they're needed, whether that's small plots of land in Africa or refugee camps in, well, lots of places these days.

"We want to develop this as a rapid response transitional food production system," says Brandi DeCarli, co-founder of the Farm from a Box project. "The box is really infrastructure for places that are struggling with a lack of infrastructure."

Most farms in the world are under one hectare in size, and many can't be irrigated because they lack power. Solar power can allow farmers to use drip irrigation, which delivers small droplets of water and fertilizer to the base of plants. That means farmers are not dependent on rains: They can grow more food and more types of food.

Farm from a Box has a prototype installation in Sonoma, California, with another set to launch in Ethiopia's Rift Valley early next year. Each will cost between $25,000-$45,000 depending on the level of technology inside. The most expensive versions will come with the mapping and sensing capabilities, while the lower-end ones will be more rudimentary.

DeCarli hopes to sell the box to the aid agencies or multinational companies as an alternative to distributing food. Giving local people the ability to farm could reduce the need for costly imports, she says. "It's about being able to supply them with the tools to be able to grow and sustain reliable crops on their own

Self-Sustaining Islands, the Future of Farming?

Self-Sustaining Islands, the Future of Farming?

Charlie Stephens

The future of oceanic farming is being shaped by a group of Spanish designers. Smart Floating Farms is a floating island of fish farms, hydroponic gardens and solar panels – all of which will help future farmers bypass the inefficiencies of traditional agriculture.

Created by Barcelona design firm Forward Thinking Architecture, Smart Floating Farms (SFF) are modular, self-regulating, and multi-dimensional ocean barges. The 656 x 1,150 ft. rectangular plots provide 2.2 million square feet of farming space, and can be linked or separated according to what is needed.

The main bottom is made up of a fish farm and slaughterhouse, which are maintained by manual labor and an encompassing wave protector. The bottom floor also holds the main storage facility and desalination plant for the hydroponic farm on the story above.

Since hydroponically grown food doesn’t need soil, the floating farm makes practical sense. Production management becomes simplified as well – data is collected from the aeroponic walls and processed through an IoT system that regulates growing conditions such as climate, and eliminates the need for harmful pesticides.

The result is a self-sustaining cycle where waste from the second floor can be used as food for the first, and vice versa. Energy for the farm is sourced from the third story, where high-energy photovoltaic panels and skylights would be located.

Like the designers behind Smart Floating Farms, other entrepreneurs are venturing into unchartered waters. Blueseed is a vision for an ocean-based community of entrepreneurs who live together on an anchored ship, working and creating alongside one another in a collaborative system. While SFF could be floated offshore to any country around the world, Blueseed offers working permits for people regardless of their home citizenship.

We are also seeing new uses of shipping containers, both as living spaces in cities and also as urban farms on college campuses. Traditionally, ships have needed to be compact and efficient to get from place to place, and this maritime model of living and producing appears to be transversing industrial boundaries.

While SFF is not a ship in the exact sense, the idea is still the same – the way we work is being affected by our environmental resources. As we try to bring food production to underserved areas and seek space for making this possible, methods of production are literally changing form.

The vast expanses of rural farms are being supplanted by the vertical farming, and hydroponics are constantly being improved and adapted around the world in place of soil-dependent techniques. Now, food can be brought from farm to table in just four hours, and unused urban spaces are being transformed into agricultural powerhouses.

Smart Floating Farms is yet another one of these innovative models for producing and delivering fresh, abundant food to areas in need around the globe.

Smart Floating Farms

This Giant Floating Farm Could Produce Almost 10 Tonnes of Food Each Year

Forward Thinking Architecture

This giant floating farm could produce almost 10 tonnes of food each year

Fruits, vegetables and fish!

FIONA MACDONALD

7 SEP 2015

Architects in Spain have designed a three-storey floating farm that would help produce nearly 10 tonnes of extra food for Earth's growing population each year, without taking up any land or fresh water.

The solar-powered farm would include massive hydroponic farms, watered by desalinated seawater, and a fish farm below, making the entire system self-sustaining and capable of producing most items in a healthy diet.

Of course, the farm is still very much conceptual and no prototype has been made just yet, so it's hard to know how successful their plans would be when put into practice. But the blueprint is based on existing technology, so there's no reason why it couldn't be built.

"This is not science fiction. It is a serious and viable solution," the architect team behind the concept at Forward Thinking Architecture write on their site. "It is not meant to 'solve' all of humanity’s hunger problems or to replace existing traditional agriculture; this is not the idea at all. The driver behind the project is to open a new initiative which can be complementary and compatible with other existing production methods in order to help reduce food risk associated problems in different areas of the globe."

This isn't the first time a floating farm has been proposed - last year a separate group of Spanish architects proposed a taller version of a floating farm, and in Japan and India engineers are building floating solar farms to harness electricity.

What's different about this design is that it contains its own mini-ecosystem that, in theory, would be capable of producing all of the following items:

According to the plans, the top level of the farm would be covered in solar panels and skylights, to allow sunlight to be harvested for electricity, and also to filter through to the plants below.

The second level would contain the hydroponic vegetables and crops. The waste products from these crops would be used to feed the fish in the level below, and the waste from these fish would then be used to fertilise the crops, creating a self-sustaining system.

Forward Thinking Architecture predict that the farm would be able to produce 1.7 tonnes of fish annually and 8.1 tonnes of fruit and vegetables.

Altogether the farm would take up a massive 200 m by 350 m area, or 204,000 square metres - which on land would be pretty impractical, but on the ocean wouldn't be much of a problem given the vast amount of space available.

The farm would also contain wind turbines and wave energy converters, to make the most of the natural energy available to it. And there would be a desalination plant and an on-board slaughterhouse and processing and packaging area, so that products could be sent straight to shops or consumers, reducing the food miles and carbon footprint of each product.

What's even better is that the farm is mostly automatic, using sensor systems to regulate watering processes and position itself in the most efficient spot each day.

Obviously there are some big hurdles to overcome with any type of structure of this kind - the biggest we can think of is the tumultuous nature of Earth's oceans. We currently struggle to keep wave energy generators safe from storm surges, so it would be hard to find safe spots to moor these beauties.

But with an abundance of harbours and lakes around the world, it wouldn't be impossible. And even though this is all just a pipe dream for now, if we could find a way to grow food sustainably in currently unused areas, it would be a big step towards feeding the soon-to-be 7.5 billion mouths on Earth.

H/T: Tech.Mic