This Vertical Farm Wants to Pioneer ‘Post-Organic’ Food

This Vertical Farm Wants to Pioneer ‘Post-Organic’ Food

by Jan Lee on Wednesday, Mar 1st, 2017 FOOD & AGRICULTURE

Once upon a time, every farmer on earth practiced something called organic agriculture, although they never bothered to coin the phrase.

The cultivators of this amazing pre-industrial concept spent their days diligently tending and harvesting their crops without the aid of manufactured products. They protected their plants with things no longer in abundance: worms, snails, ladybugs, and a full arsenal of homeopathic concoctions passed down from hundreds of years of ancestral heritage. And it was, for sure, a tough row to hoe.

Today’s natural agriculture is still organic by definition, but the mechanics to raising that chemical-free produce are a world away from what your parents might have tried in their backyard.

Most states have regulations and long lists that define organic agriculture and what can, by law, be used during large-scale organic farming. And while today’s organic farms may skillfully manage to avoid the use of controversial chemical sprays with complicated names like permethrin and thiamethoxam (which have both been suspected of contributing to the decline in bee colonies), they typically rely on concentrated non-chemical fungicides and pesticides for large-scale production.

An entrepreneur in Kearny, New Jersey, thinks he’s found the next evolution for agriculture: post-organic. If that doesn’t sound like a very inventive name for a process, the system itself makes up for it.

Irving Fain’s concept of farming does away with the swaths of green space we normally associate with wholesome agriculture. He traded acreage for an urban warehouse, a carefully-managed environment and a proprietary technology that produces food 100 times faster than conventional farming. And all of that without pesticides, soil stimulants or other additives, Fain and his company claim.

Warehouse-based vertical farming isn’t entirely new. Farmers have been dabbling in various versions of indoor farming for centuries, finding new ways to capitalize on its water-saving techniques and, in so doing, finding faster ways to ensure quality production.

But Fain’s company, Bowery Farming, uses its own self-automated technology to respond to and manipulate the environmental factors upon which plants rely.

And unlike most full-scale indoor farming operations, Bowery’s system can “sense” when it’s time to pluck the crops – something that is usually done by sight and schedule in conventional farms. That means less wasted product and more predictable harvesting seasons. It also means a more predictable bottom line.

So far the company’s ‘post-organic’ greens are available in two Manhattan restaurants, a pair of Whole Foods Market stores in New Jersey, and Foragers Market in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood.

With increasing concerns about drought and climate change, vertical farms that can operate in limited space with less water and virtually no natural sun may become the next stage in agriculture.

Whether the ‘post-organic’ concept will eventually be able to overtake the organic market’s sizable revenues ($43 billion yearly), remains to be seen. But in there’s something to be said for an industry that uses 95 percent less water than conventional farming and won’t wither with climate change.

Vertical Future: London Based Start-Up to Launch Device to Tackle Air Pollution In Major Cities

Vertical Future: London Based Start-Up to Launch Device to Tackle Air Pollution In Major Cities

The World Health Organisation estimates air pollution annually costs the UK £62bn

• Zlata Rodionova 
• 
  The Independent Online

This year London reached its annual limit for pollution in just five days, according to data from the capital’s main monitoring system. Reuters

A London-based tech start-up is developing a secretive tool designed to limit the impact of air pollution in major cities.

Husband-and-wife team Jamie and Marie-Alexandrine Burrows this week launched Vertical Future, a company backed by HSBC, which aims to tackle the negative effects of urbanisation and make our cities a “healthier place to live”.

The company’s digital product to monitor and reduce air pollution is currently in development with a prototype expected by August 2017.

“We want to make cities better for our children,” Mr Burrows said.

“Our various urban initiatives are long-term responses to tackle the negative effects of urbanisation. To promote fast and sustainable growth, we are looking to work with research organisations, investors, government, and third sector organisations that share similar views on health and urbanisation” he added.

Vertical Future’s overall mission focuses on three themes: food, digital and living.

The company’s first step will be to launch a network of so-called vertical farms across London in disused buildings and recycled shipping containers. 

Vertical farming refers to a method of growing crops, usually without soil or natural light, in beds stacked vertically inside a controlled-environment building.Each farm promises to provide year-round produce for school and local communities, create jobs and improve awareness of food sustainability as well as reducing the distance that food travels from crop to plate.

The first site in South East London will be operational from April 2017 and plans are being drawn up for a second site.

This year London reached its annual limit for pollution in just five days, according to data from the capital’s main monitoring system.

The World Health Organisation estimates air pollution annually costs the UK £62bn, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan has made tackling the problem a priority of his administration.

The Indoor Farming Compound Founded by Kimbal Musk — Elon's Brother — Now Delivering Greens

The Indoor Farming Compound Founded by Kimbal Musk — Elon's Brother — Now Delivering Greens

Leanna Garfield

Business InsiderMarch 1, 2017

Farmers from Square Roots — a Brooklyn-based urban farming accelerator program co-founded by Kimbal Musk (brother of Elon) — are now delivering their produce to local offices. 

The farmers are growing greens inside 10 steel shipping container farms. Unlike traditional outdoor farms, these vertical farms grow soil-free crops indoors and under LED lights.

While Square Roots mainly sells greens at farmer's markets in New York City, in late February, the accelerator started delivering directly as part of a weekly subscription service for companies in the area, including Vice Media, Kickstarter, and WeWork. According to Metro,  subscribers can order bags of Square Roots greens online, and the farmers will drop them off. One bag costs $7 per week, and a seven-pack costs $35.

The farmers have experimented with a number of business models since their first harvest in January. With the new delivery service, they are hoping to meet consumers where they are, Square Roots' cofounder, Tobias Peggs, tells Business Insider.

"What the farmers heard time and time again was that a lot of people in New York wanted local food, and wanted to play their part in the real food revolution — but they only ate at home once or twice per week," he says.

In fall 2016, Peggs and Musk launched Square Roots — one of Musk's many food ventures. For over a decade, he has run two restaurant chains, The Kitchen and Next Door, which serve dishes made strictly with locally-sourced meat and veggies. In 2011, he started a nonprofit program that has installed "Learning Gardens" in over 300 schools, with the intention of teaching kids about agriculture. 

Square Roots hopes to expand to 20 cities by 2020.

Grow Pod Solutions Develops New Vertical Farm Technology That Needs No Sun or Soil

Grow Pod Solutions Develops New Vertical Farm Technology That Needs No Sun or Soil

New system also uses significantly less water than conventional farms

Feb 28, 2017, 11:10 ET

CORONA, Calif., Feb. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Grow Pod Solutions (www.growpodsolutions.com), the premier developer of technology-enriched automated indoor farms, announced the development of their new Hydrologic Technology (HLT), which grows crops with no sunlight or soil, and uses about 90% less water than a conventional outdoor farm.

"This is the world's most sophisticated indoor farm," said George Natzic, President of Grow Pod Solutions. "Our new technologies will not only improve the way food is grown and distributed, but will literally change the world."

The system uses an offshoot of hydroponics to grow plants without soil. The process differs from conventional soil methods, and uses water and a nutrient solution flowing through the growing medium, producing significantly better results.

Grow Pod Solutions' Hydrologic Technology (HLT), utilizes special hydroponics that delivers more oxygen to plant roots, stimulating growth and preventing disease. With Grow Pod's disease-free environment, plants grow at higher density compared to other forms of cultivation.

Inside the GrowPod HLT Container, all elements of the environment, including light, humidity, and temperature, are controlled. There is no need for artificial chemical additives or fertilizers because the system uses no soil. There are never any pesticides because there are no bugs inside the pod.

"This goes beyond organic," Natzic said. "We can produce the cleanest food in the world."

Grow Pod Solutions' portable farms are customized to grow specific varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and cash-crops, and can be placed virtually anywhere in the world. The entire environment is controlled remotely from any computer or smart phone utilizing the Grow Pod Solutions Management App. GrowPods can utilize alternative energy, thereby operating entirely "Off the Grid."

For more information, call: (951) 549-9490 or visit: www.growpodsolutions.com

About Grow Pod Solutions:

Grow Pod Solutions develops transportable growing environments, utilizing new technologies that produce superior quality crops and higher yields, in a completely secure, remotely managed and monitored environment.

Grow Pod Solutions provides non-profit organizations, restaurants, cash-crop entrepreneurs, and urban farmers, the ability to grow fresh, organic produce year-round. As a sealed system, water needs are minimal; and with on-board water and air filtration systems, plants, vegetables and crops are grown to their fullest potential.

Connect:

Call: (951) 549-9490

Email: info@growpodsolutions.com 

Visit: www.growpodsolutions.com 

Facebook: facebook.com/GrowPod-Solutions-1660511410944495

Twitter:@GrowPodSolution

Media Contact:
Innovation Agency
310-571-5592
www.inov8.us
info(at)inov8.us

SOURCE Grow Pod Solutions

Related Links

http://www.growpodsolutions.com

Jan 27, 2017, 12:42 ET

Preview: Grow Pod Solutions Acquires Mobile Farming Systems

Also from this source

JAN 27, 2017, 12:42 ETGrow Pod Solutions Acquires Mobile Farming Systems

JAN 23, 2017, 12:43 ETAgricultural Tech Investment Rises to Record $25 Billion

Philips Lighting and Ecobain Gardens Transform First Commercial Vertical Farm Operation in Canada

hilips Lighting and Ecobain Gardens Transform First Commercial Vertical Farm Operation in Canada

Business Wire   February 28, 2017

Philips Lighting and Ecobain Gardens Transform First Commercial Vertical Farm Operation in Canada. (Photo: Business Wire) Multimedia Gallery URL

Philips Lighting (Euronext Amsterdam ticker: LIGHT), a global leader in lighting, today announced the completed installation of Philips GreenPower LED Production Modules at Ecobain Gardens, the largest commercial vertical farm operation in Canada. By upgrading the fluorescent lighting previously used in the facility to LED, Philips Lighting is helping the vertical farming pioneer to produce at commercial scale, accelerate growing cycles and grow healthier, more consistent plants, while saving up to $30,000 Canadian in energy costs per year.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170228005329/en/

Producing both organic and non-organic, nutrient-rich herbs and microgreens in a fully controlled indoor facility, Ecobain Gardens was established in 2013 and is the first commercial vertical farming operation in Saskatchewan, Canada. The facility produces 18,000 pounds of produce each year in less than 1,400 square feet. Its farming method uses up to 98 percent less water, zero harmful chemicals or pesticides and the newest energy-efficient LED lighting available from Philips Lighting. The vertical growing technology and local distribution systems reduce energy use, travel time and proximity of the crop, spoilage rates and overall operating costs.

Ecobain Gardens has partnered with food distributor Star Produce to distribute its produce throughout Canada to retailers such as Loblaws, Federated Co-op, Safeway, Sobeys, and other local grocery stores.

“Our goal is to grow our operation to a scale where we can make a difference to the people of our community who need quality nutrition, no matter their economic standing or geographical location,” said Brian Bain, Cofounder and CEO of Ecobain Gardens “The innovative LED products provided by Philips Lighting are helping us build cost effective, smart, productive farms to safely service this massive void we have in our food system. Our passion for growing plants and providing the best possible product, in unique and alternative ways, has helped shape our business and perspective on farming.”

After evaluating several LED lighting suppliers, Ecobain Gardens selected Philips GreenPower LED Production Modules to replace its original fluorescent lights in order to improve plant growth and quality, as well as significantly reduce energy consumption. Once the more energy efficient system was installed, Ecobain achieved dramatic changes in its crops. Growing cycles are considerably shorter and it is now producing more than 10,000 basil plants a week, which is at commercial scale. The low heat output of the Philips LED lights produces healthier, more consistent plant growth by reducing the heat stress on the plant canopy and root zone and by providing more uniform lighting. Plants also have a better dry weight compared to fluorescent lighting or LED lighting systems from other manufacturers.

In addition, the LED lighting system helped to reduce Ecobain’s HVAC system costs by almost 50 percent while providing Ecobain with increased space efficiency due to the minimal heat radiated by the modules. These benefits enable tighter placement of crop rows and therefore more yield from the same growing area.

Paul Boers Ltd, the Philips Horticulture Partner supporting the Ecobain project, worked with Philips Lighting and the local power provider, SaskPower to define an electric rebate structure, which resulted in a rebate of more than $70,000 Canadian dollars for Ecobain Gardens.

“We collaborate closely with our partners and customers to achieve vertical farms that deliver superior produce quality as well as economic performance, resulting in an attractive return on investment,” said Udo van Slooten, Managing Director for Philips Lighting Horticulture LED Solutions. “In partnership with Ecobain Gardens, we are taking vertical farming to the next level by demonstrating the potential of their investment as well as guiding them and their investors through the analysis and decision making process.”

For more information on Philips Horticulture products, click here: http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/products/horticulture.html

About Philips Lighting

Philips Lighting (Euronext Amsterdam ticker: LIGHT), a global leader in lighting products, systems and services, delivers innovations that unlock business value, providing rich user experiences that help improve lives. Serving professional and consumer markets, we lead the industry in leveraging the Internet of Things to transform homes, buildings and urban spaces. With 2016 sales of EUR 7.1 billion, we have approximately 34,000 employees in over 70 countries. News from Philips Lighting is located at http://www.newsroom.lighting.philips.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170228005329/en/

MULTIMEDIA AVAILABLE:http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170228005329/en/

Bowery Farming Raises $7.5M For It's High-Tech Indoor Farms

Bowery Farming Raises $7.5M For It's High-Tech Indoor Farms

The startup establishes vertical farms indoors within urban areas. Consumers get access to fresh produce and not stuff that's been packaged and shipped over a week as a result.

 PRATEEK JOSE February 27, 2017 • 2 min read

Last year, we found out we’re in the post-truth era (a claim that I am not going to back with evidence). Apparently, we’re also in the post-organic era, or at least that’s what New York-based Bowery Farming would have us believe. The operation is based on the assertion that it isn’t just enough to grow organic produce but to revamp foundational practices in the growth and distribution of crops. The result is a farming methodology executed indoors, underpinned by high-tech systems. Investors seem to confident in betting the farm on the startup – to the tune of $7.5 million in venture funding recently.
 
Bowery Farming’s product deals with every stage of the agriculture lifecycle. It starts right from the seed stage, during which partner companies that have spent almost a decade in research and development provide the ideal seeds. These seeds are planted in indoor vertical farms. These artificial environments are lit using LED lights; they can be used to mimic the full spectrum of incident sunlight. Pesticides, of course, are a big no-no. The farms are constantly monitored using computer vision, and the analytics obtained from the process are used to fine-tune results like flavor or texture of the produce.

The novel farming methodology is not just a gimmick; it has a number of important benefits. The first is that the produce always reaches consumers while it is still fresh. That’s because these indoor farms can be set up within urban areas and don’t need to be tucked away on the outskirts of cities like most other farms. The short delivery distance ensures that the produce can be consumed on the same day it is harvested, while its flavor and nutritional value are still intact.
 
Bowery Farming has a few other numbers to quantify the benefits of its system. For starters, it makes 95 percent less use of water than traditional farming. The vertical arrangement of crops makes the process 100 times more efficient in terms of volume of produce per area. The easily modifiable indoor environment ensures that growth is not dependent on the seasons or weather.

The startup also handles the distribution of the produce it grows. Vegetables currently on the roster are baby kale, butterhead lettuce, arugula, and basil, with more expected to be added in the future. The product is sold to restaurants and grocery stores. Those in the New York metro area can find Bowery Farming’s produce at certain Whole Foods and Forager’s Market. It is also sourced by the restaurants Craft and Fowler and Wells in New York City.

New LED Tube For Vertical Farms

New LED Tube For Vertical Farms

Vertical farming is still on the rise globally and with it the need for grow lights which produce minimal heat and can be positioned close to the plants. For vertical farming to be profitable, plants need to go from seed to supermarket shelves in ever decreasing time spans, while savings must be made at every turn. Next to infrastructural investments at the beginning, electricity and temperature regulation are some of the major costs for vertical farmers.

Typically, standard T8 tubes or similar light fixtures are used in vertical farms as they occupy little space, consume little energy while delivering enough µmols/m2/s to the plant for its rapid growth. Valoya, the Finnish LED grow lights manufacturer has been providing world’s top research institutes, universities and agricultural companies with LED grow lights, and now vertical farmers are increasingly opting for Valoya’s solutions due to the research grade light quality.

Vertical farms such as Growing Underground (United Kingdom) and Agricool (France) are using Valoya’s L-Series lights (T8 tubes) to successfully cultivate and bring to market various leafy greens, strawberries and other cultures, in rapid growth cycles. Now, the L series range has been complemented with a product named L40, which extends the current offering in terms of both power and length.

The new L40 tube is 1800mm (6ft) long with a 40W power consumption. It is a heavy duty fixture, longest from its series and a great option for vertical farmers looking for a high intensity light solution. Having the dimensions of standardised T8 tubes enables all L-Series lamps to be used, if desired, purely for retrofit purposes. The L-Series utilizes the latest LED technology to provide eco-friendly advantages such as lower power consumption, cooler operation and extended, maintenance free lifetime of at least 50000 hours. Lamps used in vertical farms are exposed to dust, humidity or even water getting directly on them. This is why all L-Series lamps are rated up to IP67 through the use of available accessories, meaning they are completely dust-proof and resistant to getting wet or even submerged under water, up to 1m depth. The L-Series tubes are available with all of Valoya’s wide spectra that have been proven through extensive large scale research to increase plant quality and yield while at the same time delivering energy savings and a short return on investment.

For more information, go to www.valoya.com
02/27/2017 - Valoya

Farming Promising Area of Cooperation With Qatar: S Korea Envoy

Farming Promising Area of Cooperation With Qatar: S Korea Envoy

February 25 2017 09:43 PM

Peter Alagos

South Korea sees vertical farming as a promising area of cooperation with Qatar in relation to the country’s greenhouse farming projects to enhance food security, ambassador Heung Kyeong Park has said.

The South Korea ambassador said cooperation in vertical or indoor farming, among other sectors, is one of South Korea’s plans this year to strengthen bilateral relations with Qatar.

“Considering the Qatari government has been making every effort to achieve balanced developments through economic diversification policies, we would like to help Qatar pursue its goal of a ‘sustainable economy’ by expanding South Korea-Qatar bilateral cooperation from energy and infrastructure, construction to healthcare, smart farms, manufacturing, and so on,” Park told Gulf Times.

He also said the plans will include sending and receiving more trade missions from both countries.

The ambassador noted that the South Korean embassy has arranged 10 rounds of mutual visits among South Korean and Qatari small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) last year.

“We will invite around six South Korean trade missions to Qatar and arrange visits of many Qatari trade missions to South Korea for this year as well,” he pointed out.

Asked about South Korea-Qatar trade volume, Park said the amount decreased from $26.4bn to $17.1bn in 2016 “due to low oil prices.”

Asked to provide a forecast on South Korea-Qatar trade volume now that oil prices are hovering above $50 per barrel, Park said: “If oil and gas prices bounce back, the trade volume would increase accordingly.

“South Korea and Qatar have discussed on how to expand trade within the framework of the bilateral high-level strategic cooperation committee lead by our respective ministers of industry and energy.”

On initiatives the embassy plans to put in place this year to develop South Korea and Qatar SMEs, Park said that aside from arranging mutual visits of South Korean and Qatari SMEs, the embassy is eyeing agricultural cooperation, which, he said, “is essential for Qatar’s goal of a sustainable economy.

He added: “In relation to Qatar’s greenhouse farming projects to enhance food security, indoor farming or vertical farming requires advanced agricultural techniques and experience, LED lights and IT technologies, all of which I believe South Korea possesses.

“I visited a commercial indoor farm in Al Khor, which is producing mushroom, fruit, and vegetables all the year round. I think our bilateral cooperation could facilitate a sustainable agriculture, overcoming adverse weather conditions in Qatar.”

Aquaculture And Vertical Farming At University of Arizona

Aquaculture And Vertical Farming At University of Arizona

There will be two speakers at the next CEAC Covering Environments Seminar, held Friday, February 24th from 4:15 PM to 5:15 PM in the CEAC Lecture Room. 

At 4:15 PM, Dr. Kevin Fitzsimmons (Professor ABE, SWES and CEAC Faculty) will give his presentation entitled “Technological Advances, Trends and Challenges in Aquaculture”.  

Twice President (World and US Aquaculture Societies), Fulbright Scholar, Editorial Board member (Fisheries Science), multi department Professor and Scientist, world traveler and teacher—just a few of Fitzsimmons' talents and achievements which have catapulted him to become a world leader in aquaculture systems and food production.

Fitzsimmons is fond of explaining that when you connect a fish tank with a lettuce raft, you get "Better Science, Better Fish, Better Life". These are the scientific and humanitarian principles on which Dr. Fitzsimmons' career is based. He came to that conclusion based on his extensive work which is based on the science of symbiosis between fish and plants whether in natural or constructed environments (e.g. aquaponics).

Fitzsimmons, who is an acclaimed international expert in this area of agriculture, likes to point out that aquaculture has a long history "From the Pharaohs to the Future", and that he is most active in the latter aspect of the science. Dr. Fitzsimmons has applied his knowledge and passion in the amazing spectrum of aquaculture ranging from shrimp production, to tilapia culture, seaweed production, water purification, algae control, and onto the biology of native fish. And, he has done so across the USA, in Thailand, the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Honduras, Mexico, Myanmar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the list keeps growing. No wonder that Fitzsimmons also carries the title of Director of International Programs at CALS thus bolstering the recognition and outreach of the University of Arizona worldwide.

In his presentation, Kevin will discuss recent developments and future trends in how novel aquaculture technologies are taking a central role in food production especially in developing countries.

At 4:45 PM, Dr. Joel Cuello (Professor ABE, CEAC Faculty) will take the stage and deliver his presentation entitled “Minimally Structured, Modular, Prefabricated Vertical Farm Designs 2.0”.

He doesn't like walls, hunger or intolerance. He likes creativity, travel, communicating, learning, imagination, feeding the world, thinking about clean water! In short, Professor Cuello is a renaissance man. Joel Cuello has dedicated his career to finding ways to solve existential world problems before they become irreversible: food production and security, water purification, energy and environmental sustainability, eradication of thirst and hunger, and the fostering of cross cultural understanding.

These are lofty, complex, and at first glance such enormous problems that one would think them to be unsolvable. But, Cuello is a pragmatist—he is after all an engineer. And so, he is addressing these issues bit by bit, corner by corner, eventually producing a mosaic of solutions. Energy conservation? Algae; Hunger mitigation? Bioproduction systems. Sustainability? Recycling of water, nutrients, and the usage of novel lighting sources to sustain plant growth in controlled environments. Environmental degradation? Designing self-contained, portable environments for food production on earth and in Space. Needing creative minds to solve future engineering challenges? Teaching and fostering developing minds internationally.

These are some of the things that Joel Cuello has spent doing during his career, and he will share his focused vision and engineering solutions to vertical farm designs as a solution to the impending, global food shortages.

For more information:
ceac.arizona.edu/ceac-seminar-series

“Post-Organic” Produce Uses 95-Percent Less Water Than Traditional Farming

“Post-Organic” Produce Uses 95-Percent Less Water Than Traditional Farming

A newly launched modern farming company, Bowery, is growing what they call the world’s first “post-organic” produce. Their concept breaks from traditional agricultural practices by growing plants indoors in vertical rows without any pesticides. With the help of proprietary technology, Bowery can closely monitor the growth of their crops and meticulously manage the resources needed. More than 80 types of crops are currently being grown at the company’s farm in Kearny, New Jersey, and they are selling several types of greens and herbs in stores in the New York region.

The idea for the company spawned when co-founder and CEO Irving Fain discovered a promising trend in LED lighting cost and efficiency that could improve indoor farming. “The pricing of LED lights dropped dramatically a little over 5 years ago,” Fain says. “We’ve also seen the efficiency more than double. What makes this even more exciting is that research suggests that this trend will continue. This means that not only are LED’s a viable solution for indoor farming today, but this solution continues to scale out in the future.”

“While traditional farming methods waste resources and endanger our future food supply, advancements in indoor farming make it possible to address a wide range of agricultural issues,” Fain adds. He teamed up with co-founders David Golden and Brian Falther to start Bowery.

“Agriculture consumes 70 percent of available water globally, and we use over 700 million pounds of pesticides each year in the United States alone,” Fain says. “Bowery is working to change that.” As the population grows, Fain and his team believe their company can provide more efficient food to help meet increasing demands around the world. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reportsthat food production will need to increase by 70 percent to feed an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050.

Bowery’s model begins with non-GMO seeds that are planted in vertical rows in an indoor growing environment to optimize space and eliminate the need for soil. According to the company, Bowery’s system is more than 100 times more productive on the same footprint of land. FarmOS, a technology system built by the Bowery team, allows crops to grow year-round, at a faster rate, and using 95-percent less water than traditional agriculture. FarmOS creates ideal conditions using automation, LED lighting that mimics the sun, and a 24-hour monitoring to ensure a reliable yield without wasting resources.

Fain calls these “post-organic” crops the next evolution of produce. Unlike organic products that might utilize organic pest management products, Bowery crops are grown without using any pesticides at all.

Another part of Bowery’s process is growing the produce close to the point of consumption. Their farm in Kearny currently distributes to Foragers Market locations in New York City, with plans to expand into select Whole Foods in the tri-state area. Bowery products are also used at Tom Colicchio’s restaurants, Craft and Fowler & Wells in New York City. This proximity ensures that produce will reach stores and restaurants within one day of being picked, when it is at the height of freshness and flavor. The company has plans for future farms following the same model.

Bowery’s packaged greens start at US$3.49. “As we scale, we plan to drive down our costs and deliver the highest quality produce at a price that makes it even more accessible to all,” Fain says. The products available now include kale mix, baby kale, basil, arugula, butterhead lettuce, and mixed greens. Additional items will be offered soon.

Bowery has been in the works for more than two years now, but their official launch on February 23, 2017, marks their formal introduction to consumers. “We’re very proud of the work we’ve done and are excited for consumers to learn more about what Bowery is doing to address some of the complex issues in agriculture,” Fain says.

Here's Why Your Winter Produce Tastes Better

Here's Why Your Winter Produce Tastes Better

By PETER FROST 

 Nearly 7 million pounds of hydroponic tomatoes will be harvested this year from two 7.5-acre greenhouses in Rochelle, about 80 miles west of Chicago. Another new greenhouse in that small town is delivering greens, herbs and tomatoes year-round to all Mariano's supermarkets in the Chicago area. And on the South Side, a greenhouse atop a soap factory is producing 25 crops of leafy greens a year, the equivalent yield of a 50-acre farm in just under 2 acres of space.

The amount of local, sustainably grown produce available throughout the year in Chicago has never been greater. But it's still not enough, as health-centric millennials assert their dominance over the U.S. food chain. While greenhouses have long been a mainstay of fresh produce in Europe, the industry is still nascent in North America, where open, irrigable land is more plentiful. Substantial capital requirements and slim margins—especially in the early days of a controlled farming operation—can stymie startups and, in fact, recently caused one high-profile vertical farm to shut down in suburban Chicago. Still, an influx of venture and private-equity money is funding the erection of more greenhouses and indoor farms, mostly around big population centers like Chicago.

North America is expected to be the fastest-growing commercial greenhouse market worldwide through 2020, according to a report from market research firm Research & Markets. Globally, the industry is projected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 8.8 percent, reaching nearly $30 billion by 2020, the report says.

"It reminds me a bit of solar 1.0, where capital intensity is unknown or varied, and the industry is immature and unproven," says Sanjeev Krishnan, managing director of Chicago-based S2G Ventures, which invests in food and agriculture companies focused on healthy, sustainable and local food. But like solar panels, whose costs have come down substantially over the last decade, Krishnan thinks what he calls "controlled agriculture" is well on the way to proving itself as a sustainable business model. "We believe in the trend of growing closer to your demand center. It makes sense for logistics costs, (spoilage) and a product quality perspective."

Nearly 7 million pounds of hydroponic tomatoes will be harvested this year from two 7.5-acre greenhouses in Rochelle, about 80 miles west of Chicago. Another new greenhouse in that small town is delivering greens, herbs and tomatoes year-round to all Mariano's supermarkets in the Chicago area. And on the South Side, a greenhouse atop a soap factory is producing 25 crops of leafy greens a year, the equivalent yield of a 50-acre farm in just under 2 acres of space.

The amount of local, sustainably grown produce available throughout the year in Chicago has never been greater. But it's still not enough, as health-centric millennials assert their dominance over the U.S. food chain. While greenhouses have long been a mainstay of fresh produce in Europe, the industry is still nascent in North America, where open, irrigable land is more plentiful. Substantial capital requirements and slim margins—especially in the early days of a controlled farming operation—can stymie startups and, in fact, recently caused one high-profile vertical farm to shut down in suburban Chicago. Still, an influx of venture and private-equity money is funding the erection of more greenhouses and indoor farms, mostly around big population centers like Chicago.

North America is expected to be the fastest-growing commercial greenhouse market worldwide through 2020, according to a report from market research firm Research & Markets. Globally, the industry is projected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 8.8 percent, reaching nearly $30 billion by 2020, the report says.

"It reminds me a bit of solar 1.0, where capital intensity is unknown or varied, and the industry is immature and unproven," says Sanjeev Krishnan, managing director of Chicago-based S2G Ventures, which invests in food and agriculture companies focused on healthy, sustainable and local food. But like solar panels, whose costs have come down substantially over the last decade, Krishnan thinks what he calls "controlled agriculture" is well on the way to proving itself as a sustainable business model. "We believe in the trend of growing closer to your demand center. It makes sense for logistics costs, (spoilage) and a product quality perspective."

SHAKEOUT

S2G in August put about $4 million behind a combination greenhouse/vertical herb farm in Harrisonburg, Va., called Shenandoah Growers, and it's studying minority investments in unconventional growers. But placing bets in the field remains risky, Krishnan says, noting that many of the early players in greenhouse and vertical farming either have gone out of business or changed their business models. He expects additional shakeout over the next three years.

One local casualty was Bedford Park-based FarmedHere, which shuttered last month, largely because it didn't have enough capital to expand production and spread out its costs, says Nate Laurell, its former CEO. Laurell relaunched the company as Here, which turns would-be discarded produce from other growers into juices, salad dressings and spreads that have longer shelf lives.

Despite the demise of his farming operation, Laurell remains bullish on indoor and greenhouse farming's place in the food chain. "I really think it's like energy. It's not solar or wind or natural gas, it's all of it," he says.

He and others say there's plenty of room for smart operators that are backed with sufficient capital, due in large part to intractable secular trends in the industry.

"Right now the demand in the marketplace exceeds our supply," says Viraj Puri, CEO of New York-based Gotham Greens, which operates four greenhouses, including the 2-acre greenhouse on the roof of the Method soap factory in Chicago's Pullman neighborhood. The company, which sells lettuces to restaurants like Gibsons and Honey Butter Fried Chicken as well as grocers Jewel and Whole Foods Market, has raised more than $30 million and is exploring an expansion in Chicago.

Then there's MightyVine, which built a 7.5-acre greenhouse in Rochelle in 2015 and almost immediately after opening began an expansion that would double its size. It has invested about $20 million in the project.

Its tomatoes have earned their way into some of the city's higher-end kitchens, such as Rick Bayless' and those of Italian restaurants Il Porcelino and Monteverde. They're also sold in Whole Foods and Jewel in Chicago and supermarket chains in Iowa and Wisconsin and just launched in 49 Fresh Thyme stores this month, says CEO Gary Lazarski. "If we waited on the expansion, we knew we'd be in a shortage situation rather quickly," he says.

Its neighbor in Rochelle, BrightFarms, invested $10 million into a 3.7-acre greenhouse that grows lettuces, tomatoes and herbs, all earmarked for Mariano's stores. The company, which has raised more than $70 million since 2011, also has greenhouses in Virginia and Pennsylvania and is finalizing plans to build in Ohio and near Kansas City, Mo., says CEO Paul Lightfoot. "We expect more competition and more investors," Lightfoot says. "In the hot part of any market, you'd be a fool not to assume more capital will come in and more competitors will arrive."

Motorleaf Launches Kickstarter Campaign To Debut The HEART, A Wireless, Automated Indoor Growing System

Motorleaf Launches Kickstarter Campaign To Debut The HEART, A Wireless, Automated Indoor Growing System

otorleaf helps growers monitor, automate and control their indoor gardens with intuitive, full-featured software and modular hardware

MONTREAL, CANADA (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 24, 2017

The Motorleaf team launched their Kickstarter campaign today and is looking to raise a total of CA$5,000 to put their products into production. Their latest product, the HEART, is one of four hardware units that connects wirelessly to control indoor gardens ranging from the size of a closet to a five-acre field. The HEART collects air temperature, humidity and light level data. With the HEART, growers can connect any lighting hardware or feeder pumps to start automating their operation within seconds.

With all Motorleaf products, users can monitor all major aspects of their grow room environment directly from their laptop, desktop, tablet or smartphone. Motorleaf products make it easy to monitor water temperature, PH levels, water levels, air temperature, humidity levels, nutrient levels and light levels. Users can connect their HEART to Motorleaf’s Droplet hardware to monitor their water reservoir tank, the Powerleaf(s) to automate their overall growing environment and/or to the Driplet to wirelessly automate the delivery of pH and nutrients to their water reservoir. Motorleaf’s Artificial Intelligence-equipped hardware components help take the guesswork out of growing.

“As a team, we share a clear understanding of what our technology enables people all over the world to achieve,” said CEO and Co-Founder Ally Monk. “With our products, people will be able to grow more produce within their communities with less waste and better yields. We work to connect growers to their plants, and to each other.”

In addition, motion detection and 24/7 video monitoring can be enabled, as well as custom alerts to notify the user of any unexpected changes within the garden. Growers have the option of operating HEART as its own unit or connecting it to any of Motorleaf’s additional Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-enabled hardware to gain additional automation.

Early supporters can pre-order Motorleaf’s HEART for CA$589, which is 30% less than the future retail price. Additional products from Motorleaf’s collection will also be available in addition to the HEART. For more information about the Heart and other Motorleaf products, visit http://bit.ly/MotorleafKS.

ABOUT MOTORLEAF

With offices in Montreal and Sutton, Quebec, Canada; the Motorleaf co-founders shared a passion for indoor farming and technology. The otorleaf team consists of gardeners, coders and new product specialists. For more information, visit http://www.motorleaf.com.

Nova Scotia Food-Growing Startups Benefit From Their Seaside Locale

Nova Scotia Food-Growing Startups Benefit From Their Seaside Locale

Denise Deveau | February 23, 2017 | Last Updated: Feb 23 7:45 AM ET
More from Denise Deveau

Entrepreneur Gregg Curwin says his light-bulb moment came during a trip to Japan six years ago. The choice of words is fitting, given that he was visiting an indoor vertical farming operation where lighting figures prominently.

He later brought that technology to Nova Scotia to found TruLeaf – touted as one of the first vertical farming operations in North America. Vertical farming is a collection of technologies around LED lighting, hydroponics, seed science and controlled environments, he says. “It’s quite new to North America. I saw it as a wonderful tool to address the massive problem of chronic disease, through whole plant nutrition.”

For now the focus at the Truro facility is on micro greens and herbs, but as R&D work continues, he plans to apply it to crops such as strawberries, mushrooms, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Curwin is one of a successful group of Nova Scotia entrepreneurs who are considered world leaders in sustainable farming innovation – from micro greens to salmon to seaweed.

“People think Nova Scotia doesn’t have the groundwork for great entrepreneurial innovation,” Curwin says. “We have some focus on IT and software like every jurisdiction in North America. But with the ocean and the Bay of Fundy and the academic research, entrepreneurs have a wonderful playground to build a sustainable food-growing hub for biomass, plants and proteins. We can be a global player, because we have all we need here.”

Entrepreneurs have a wonderful playground in
Nova Scotia to build a sustainable food-growing hub

His timing was perfect as vertical farming has exploded in recent years, he says. TruLeaf already has Loblaw as an early adopter, and is opening an additional facility in Guelph in the fall that is quintuple the size of its original plant in Truro. It is also looking at a larger facility in Eastern Canada, and possibly building three more in Ontario, Quebec and Western Canada.

Canada isn’t the only potential market. Curwin says every week groups from around the world contact him about licensing the technology. “Our uniqueness is around the design of the building environments, our plants and our safety practices. It’s great because these farms can be placed anywhere, such as places of need like the Arctic. I can see greenhouse producers converting defunct warehouse space for high-yield production. We’re super excited, but also super disciplined in making sure we go about this properly.”

Another innovator on the Nova Scotia entrepreneurial scene is Sustainable Blue Salmon. The Dartmouth-based company is perfecting a unique salt-water recirculation technology that allows farm salmon to be raised in land pens. CEO Kirk Havercroft says the technology was originally developed in Scotland by company president Dr. Jeremy Lee for use in public aquariums.

In 2005 they switched to aquaculture. “That’s always where we intended to end up,” Havercroft says. “A geographical study pointed us in the direction of Nova Scotia as the ideal place to build an aquaculture company.”

The concept is a timely one given the well-publicized issues around fish farming operations. In conventional fish farms, fish are grown in cages in open waters which is causing a raft of environmental and ecological problems, from transfer of parasites and bacterial outbreaks to fecal matter damaging sea beds, water temperature fluctuations and oil spills. Cage farming has also been linked to the drastic reduction in wild salmon stocks.

A closed system allows near-complete protection from all those risks, Havercroft says. “You can never take the risk down to zero, but we can take it as far as we can.”

The process has tremendous market potential because it can be used in places where salmon is not traditionally found, he says. “Go to the Middle East and there is no possible way to grow salmon in cages. With our technology, organizations can grow a premium Atlantic salmon on their own doorstep to serve a high-value market.”

Havercroft says now the technology is proven, it plans to expand its existing capacity in Centre Burlington; as well as license the technology worldwide for investors who want to get into farming salmon.

“Developing a proprietary technology gives us a unique advantage globally,” he claims. “But the heart of our technology will always be here. We’ve had tremendous success in raising investment capital so operating from a tiny village has not been a disadvantage at all.”

Nova Scotia innovation isn’t just found in the new businesses on the block. One of the original entrepreneurs on the aquaculture scene is Acadian Seaplants, also based in Dartmouth. It has been innovating in its space since it was founded in 1981, and now has 350 employees in 11 countries in around the world, says Jean-Paul Deveau, president and CEO.

The company started with one customer and one product – dried, baled seaweed. “We knew if we wanted to grow and prosper, commodity supply would be a road to disaster if we didn’t diversify,” he says.

Much of its development work on seaweed cultivation was done with the support of the National Research Council, which had the technology to make extracts from seaweed to help grow crops. This led to the development of animal feed products. Further research went into products to support crop growth. “Now we are the world leading resource on the use of seaweed extracts for agriculture,” Deveau claims.

The company is also home to the largest land-based seaweed cultivation farm. Those products are sold to the Japanese market for use in seaweed salads.

Deveau credits its ongoing success to the province’s strong R&D ecosystem. “The research cluster here is wonderful. The NRC, local universities and colleges – we partner with all of them. Through R&D we will continue to diversify that so we can stay ahead of the world.”

Deveau has always believed that Nova Scotia has a tremendous number of advantages for a creative-minded business owner. “We have local resources, a great community, a tremendous academic base, a strong talent pool, and a government that is great to work with. And we have the ocean. It’s an environment that offers tremendous economic potential.”

​​​​​​​​​​​​​Inside The Vertical Farm Growing What It Calls "The World's First Post-Organic" Produce

Inside The Vertical Farm Growing What It Calls "The World's First Post-Organic" Produce

Without using any pesticides or chemicals, Bowery—a new vertical farming startup outside of New York City—delivers fresh leafy greens within one day of harvesting, with some help from agricultural AI.

EILLIE ANZILOTTI 02.23.17 9:00 AM

Before leading people through the heavy metal doors and into the vertical farm Irving Fain has recently opened in a warehouse in Kearny, New Jersey, he asks visitors to take off their jewelry. He hands them a disposable jumpsuit and a hairnet to put on; bright blue sleeves must be slipped on over shoes. "It’s about protecting the integrity of the environment," Fain says. Jewelry could fall off and into the beds of leafy greens; shoes and clothes could track in unknown germs.

For Bowery—the farm that Fain, a former marketing entrepreneur, first conceived of two years ago—contamination is a particular concern. Bowery is growing what it calls "the world’s first post-organic produce," meaning that all of the leafy greens in the warehouse—which range from kale to Thai basil to wasabi arugula—are grown completely without pesticides, and completely under the control of a comprehensive, proprietary operating system that oversees the entire growing process. "We fully own our process from seed to store," Fain says—the "post-organic" designation derives from the fact that the founders view Bowery's farming and tech integration as the next frontier in agriculture. Though the startup doesn't release exact capacity or operating cost figures, Bowery estimates that it is 100 times more productive on the same plot of land than traditional farms.

Organic produce has grown into a $43.3 billion industry in the U.S., and its popularity is largely driven by two beliefs: that organic food is healthier, and that it’s grown without pesticides. The former is not necessarily true; the USDA organic certification refers to growing methods, not nutritional value. But the growing methods remain the source of some confusion. One survey found that 95% of consumers believe organic produce is grown completely without pesticides. That is definitely not true: Large-scale organic farms make liberal use of pesticides—the pesticides themselves just have to be organic, too. (The USDA maintains a list of synthetic substances like ethanol and chlorine dioxide allowed for the use in organic crop production, provided that "the use of such substances do not contribute to contamination of crops, soil, or water.")

Bowery, like many other vertical farms (like one that also recently opened in New Jersey) bypasses the use of chemicals entirely. Inside the warehouse, greens are grown in vertical columns stacked five high; LED lights deliver a full spectrum of light mimicking the sun, and because the water is delivered efficiently and recycled, Bowery requires 95% less water than traditional agriculture. Because the environment has to be carefully controlled to minimize threats of food-borne illnesses, Bowery complies with the highest standards of food safety protocols, including Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, which ensures safety at every step of the growing and delivery process.

"It doesn’t take much to see that agriculture is at the epicenter of so many issues facing the world today," Fain tells Co.Exist. Around 70% of the world’s water supply goes to agriculture, and on top of the fact that nearly 11% of the world’s population struggles with access to food, we’ll likely need 50% to 70% more food to feed the 9.5 billion people estimated to be on the planet by 2050. Most of that population growth will happen in cities, and Fain says he was drawn to figuring out how to provide fresh food to urban environments in a way that’s efficient and sustainable. With his two cofounders David Golden and Brian Falther, who also have experience in the business and tech worlds, they "dove in and approached the issue from the standpoint of: What’s the best technology we can use to solve this problem?" Fain says.

Indoor and vertical farming are not new concepts—a robot-run indoor farm in Kyoto, Japan, that recently opened will produce around 10 million heads of lettuce per year, and a warehouse in Alaska houses a vertical farm that delivers leafy greens to a region that struggles with access to fresh produce. But Bowery, Fain says, is taking it a step further with its proprietary technology, developed specifically to support the venture. Called FarmOS, the fully integrated technology system uses machine learning and vision to understand and respond to all the variables that go into how the plants are grown. The sensors installed all around the farm track the optimal levels of light and nutrients for each variety of produce, which can be adjusted to effect things like taste and flavor (Fain says that the way the system is manipulated can ramp up or diminish the wasabi-like kick of a certain type of arugula grown in the farm).

FarmOS also detects when plants are ready to be harvested—something Fain says that traditional farmers tend to determined by eyeballing, which is "a hard method to scale." By tracking the growth of plants 24/7 and sending data back into the operating system, FarmOS learns the optimal point of harvest for each crop. The system flags when each plant has reached its peak, and stores what it has learned about optimal light and nutrients for the next round of growing. Once Bowery produce is harvested, it’s delivered out within one day and travels no more than 10 miles (for traditional produce, delivery can take weeks). Since the farm started producing last summer, it has delivered produce to a handful of New York City area restaurants, among them Tom Colicchio’s Craft and Fowler & Wells, and Foragers, a market specializing in high-quality, local produce. At the beginning of March, Bowery will start selling at local Whole Foods. A box of Bowery greens will retail for $3.49—comparable to a similarly sized box of organic greens but more expensive than a bag. (It's cheaper, though, than some of Whole Foods' pricier leafy green offerings, which push $6 per box.)

To date, Bowery has raised $7.5 million; First Round Capital provided the first round of seed funding, and a variety of food-industry professionals, from Blue Apron CEO Matt Salzberg to Plated chairman Sally Robling, are on board as angel investors. Though the Bowery venture is just getting off the ground, Fain sees a lot of potential for his model to do a great deal of good. The efficiency of Bowery’s technology enables the startup to sell produce at prices comparable to traditionally grown crops, and Fain hopes to be able to drive the prices down further as the company grows. He also says that he and his founders are looking into developing a charitable arm to the startup—in New York City, where more than 16% of residents are food insecure and lack access to good-quality produce, Bowery could fill a real need.

For now, Fain is already at work on another Bowery farm in the New York City area, but he says there’s no stopping how this model could expand to serve a wider range of communities. "That’s one of the beauties of this place," Fain says of the Kearny outpost. "This was just a completely empty warehouse, and now it’s a fully functioning farm. There’s no shortage of unused industrial space across the world that could be put to similar use."

Bowery Launches AI-Enabled Indoor Farming Business with $7.5m in Seed Funding

Bowery Launches AI-Enabled Indoor Farming Business with $7.5m in Seed Funding

FEBRUARY 23, 2017 LOUISA BURWOOD-TAYLOR

There’s a new indoor farming company in town.

Today, New Jersey-based Bowery comes out of stealth to announce that it has raised $7.5 million in angel and seed funding to launch its new vertical farming business.

Founded by tech entrepreneur Irving Fain in October 2014 with co-founders David Golden and Brian Falther, Bowery has built a vertical farming facility in New Jersey that uses automation, machine learning, and vision systems to monitor and tend to its crops.

The business will start by selling baby kale, basil, Bowery blend, Bowery kale mix, arugula, and butterhead lettuce, which it grows without any pesticides or agrichemicals.

Fain and his team of engineers and agriculture scientists built the farm from the ground up to create a proprietary growing system that Fain believes is a scalable way to provide fresh, local food more efficiently and sustainably.

Bowery’s vertical farms are driven by LED and hydroponic technology. The farm is stacked vertically in a completely controlled environment that’s monitored by Bowery’s farm operating system. The “brains of the farm”, as Fain calls it, draws in data from a network of sensors across the facility that are measuring a variety of data points that impact the growth of the plant.

These sensors include cameras and the FarmOS uses computer vision to detect changes in the plant. By correlating these images against other variables detected by the sensors such as humidity or temperature, the software can determine the drivers of changes in plant health, taste or quality, according to Fain.

“Through machine learning, the system can learn how the various variables within the farm can drive changes in the flavor and health of the plants, and the system can also be automated to make any necessary changes to the environment in which the plant is growing,” he told AgFunderNews.

This operating system is not necessarily new — motorleaf is building a similar sensing and automation tool for indoor farmers — but Bowery has built the technology as a vertically integrated farming business.

“We made the decision to be a vertically integrated company because we want to have control from seed to store to ensure a high-quality product that we can stand behind,” said Fain. “And we want to build a brand.”

Bowery is very focused on the flavor profile of its crops and has the endorsement of celebrity chef and restauranteur Tom Collichio. Collichio is an angel investor in Bowery and is also serving Bowery produce in two of his restaurants, Fowler & Wells, and Craft.

“We can make our arugula spicier or more peppery by tweaking certain variables including the intensity of light, the amount of light, the nutrients it receives and so on,” he said. “There are various stresses that can have an impact on the flavor profile of a crop.”

(Bowery treated me to a tasting and I had arugula that tasted of wasabi!)

Fain likened it to the production of wine where a certain amount of rain, a poorly-timed frost, and temperature variations will impact whether it’s a vintage year or not.

“Wine growers might know the certain drivers for a vintage year, and they might be able to predict if one year will be, but they can’t control it,” he said. “We can and it’s much more than lighting recipes.”

Bowery produce will soon hit the shelves of Whole Foods and Foragers in the New York tristate area and the company will continue to target retailers and restaurants as its core customer base.

The company raised $7.5 million in seed funding back in October 2015 with First Round Capital leading the round. Box Group, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, SV Angel, Homebrew, Flybridge, Red Swan, RRE, and Urban.us also participated. As well as a group of angel investors: Matt Salzberg (founder and CEO of Blue Apron), Sally Robling (chairman of Plated, 30 years of experience in the food industry), Tom Colicchio, and Adam Eskin (founder and CEO of DigInn).

Loan Approved For SB Indoor Farming Project

Loan Approved For SB Indoor Farming Project

By Mark Peterson | 

Posted: Thu 5:25 PM, Feb 23, 2017  | 

Updated: Thu 6:37 PM, Feb 23, 2017

This could be the year indoor farming comes to inner city South Bend.

Planning for a vertical farm began back in 2015.

Earlier this week, an $800,000 loan was conditionally approved for the project (from the City of South Bend’s Industrial Revolving Loan Fund) while a recent Crowdfunding campaign raised $640,000. That puts the for-profit company called Green Sense that much closer to breaking ground on a facility that would be located on the Ivy Tech Campus.

“They're going to have a partnerships with Ivy Tech where they can bring students who have an interest in agriculture into the building into their process train them have them be able to have an educational opportunity there to learn how this all works,” said Acting Director of South Bend’s Community Investment Department, Brian Pawlowski. “There's some private side financing that needs to happen that'll be on the order of an additional two or so million dollars for the entirety of the project to go up but once that's all in place I would anticipate maybe sometime around this summer or so, they could potentially start construction at that point.”

At the vertical farm, leafy greens would be grown indoors, 365 days a year, hydroponically, using artificial light. “You know rain, wind, snow, shine whatever it may be, they can get the job done and they can really cater their produce to what the market demand is,” said Pawlowski.

Green Sense is a for-profit company that would pay for the project—Ivy Tech would essentially be getting a lab for free.

The first vertical farm Green Sense built was in Portage, Indiana…the last was in China. 

9 Reasons Why Vertical Farms Fail

9 Reasons Why Vertical Farms Fail

by Chris Michael | Feb 20, 2017 | Farm & Business Planning | 0 comments

First annual “Aglanta” event shines light on “shuttered” farms

This weekend 200+ urban farmers, policy makers, industry professionals, and good food advocates gathered in Atlanta, Georgia for the first annual “Aglanta” conference.

A highly promoted and anticipated segment of the event featured a unique panel titled: “An Examination of Shuttered Vertical Farming Facilities.”

The panel, hosted by industry commentator blog Agritecture provided a platform for three unique case studies with one overlapping theme: Tales of why vertical farms failed.

Watch the full panel discussion here >>

The panelists, including Paul Hardej, Co-Founder of FarmedHere, Mike Nasseri, Harvest Supervisor atLocalGarden, and Matt Liotta, CEO of PodPonics, took turns weighing in on several questions selected and facilitated by Agritecture’s Community Manager Andrew Blume, who moderated the event.

In this post, we’ll examine each panelist’s perspective to provide a detailed summary of the top 9 reasons each of these vertical farms ultimately failed.

1) Location, location, location.

Whether you’re talking about buying a house or building a vertical farm, choosing the right location iscritical.

After all, the whole reason you’re building a vertical farm is to grow crops closer to market and meet thedemand for fresher food. If demand doesn’t exist, then Poof! There goes your business feasibility.

On the other hand, imagine that you do have fantastic demand for local food. That advantage is often eclipsed by the inability for local farmers to start farms in or around where people actually live. Several obstacles stand in the way of urban farmers when tradition soil-based farming is impossible because of…

• … high cost of land.
• … poor soil quality.
• … inherent risk of uncontrollable factors.

Amplifying these disadvantages of urban farmers are the facts that unlike giant established and well-funded farms, the little guys can’t always afford the levels of insurance, permits, and “Plan Bs” to protect themselves from that risk.

Vertical farmers, however, have the unique ability to sideline these constraints by leveraging high density growing technology and taking control of their growing environment.

That said, just because the technology and techniques exist to grow food anywhere, the aspiring vertical farmer still has many questions to answer in order to get the location recipe just right.

Location question #1: What am I growing and for whom?

This is the most fundamental question for all startup farmers to ask, regardless of their growing technique.

Although we’ve said this for years, it’s worth repeating once more: 
If you can’t sell it, you shouldn’t grow it.

Whether you win or lose in your commercial farming venture comes down to being able to sell your produce, not just grow it.

So before you ever put down roots, it’s critical you do your market research to find out what your markets can’t get or needs more of, who your customers will be, and the potential prices you could charge.

Doing so will either save you a lot of money and heartache by telling you your idea isn’t worth pursuing or give you the green light on your farm planning journey.

Location question #2: What’s my distribution plan?

In addition to matching your crop(s) to market demand, it’s important to understand how you’ll physically get your produce from your facility to your customers.

Doing so requires that you know who your end customers are and keep your farm location as close to them as possible.

If you’re selling direct to consumer through a CSA (community supported agriculture) for example, your farm should be located as close to the community you’re serving as possible.

If you’re selling specifically to restaurants, you want your farm close to the restaurant(s) you’re serving.

If you’re selling direct to grocery stores… you get the point.

However, one exception here is if you decide to sell to these customers through a wholesaler or distribution partner, as was the case of PodPonics’s first farm.

Even though their farm was growing for local restaurants, they chose to do so through a distribution middleman which took his product across town to their warehouse only to return to the restaurants down the street.

This logistical oversight made Liotta change this thinking about farm locations. Instead of establishing a farm near the end consumer, he opted instead to set up their operations closer to their distribution partners.

“It’s about being at the point of distribution, not at the point of consumption.” — Matt Liotta, PodPonics

For new farmers, the lesson here is about knowing not only who you want to see consuming your food, but also how they’ll get it. For PodPonics, once they grew large enough and began selling through a distribution partner, the middleman essentially became their customer.

Location question #3: Will my building meet my farm’s needs?

Once you’ve nailed down the proximity to market question, it’s time to start searching for the right facility in the geographic area you’ve selected.

Indoor controlled environment farms often require substantial amounts of power and the fact is not all buildings are equipped with the type of electricity at the capacity these facilities require to operate.

When searching for a facility, it helps to know exactly what type of equipment you’re using and the energy requirements of each.

Before making a decision on a building, you must know how much power you’ll need to support your growing equipment, lighting, pumps, HVAC, automation equipment, dehumidifiers, fans, computers, etc. Growers serious about scaling up should also consider any increases in power requirements for future expansions.

Depending on the equipment you choose, should be paired with a qualified rep that can help you identify not only the best equipment t0 meet your farming goals, but also work with you to identify your electrical loads.

Having these exact numbers will allow you to seek out a building with the proper electrical capacity to make your farm work the way it should.

The bottom line: Both your geographical location and the physical space where you decide to install your vertical farm should be carefully considered. Your business will not get off the ground or go very far without a good location.

Looking to dive deeper? This video will walk you through some of the considerations for the proper indoor farm facility.

2) Choose a pricing strategy based on value.

One of the most important coaching conversations we have with our growers is about how they should price their products.

It’s a common instinct for new farmers to simply survey the prices on grocery store shelves and price their product to compete.

And Matt Liotta of Podponics shared that same gut instinct.

“We got into the market trying to compete with the California growers so we priced our product exactly the same as them… Our focus was to try and sell at the same price as everyone else, and try and lower the cost of producing it,” Liotta said.

But that’s fundamentally the wrong approach and Liotta admits it cost Podponics a lot of profit margin on their produce.

When we tell our farmers they should actually avoid competing with conventional growers, they often give us a confused look.

They forget that their product has significantly fewer “unknowns” to it and customers perceive local products as a fresher, more trustworthy option.

Their produce was not grown in some unknown field using unknown chemicals handled by unknownpeople and shipped for hundreds if not thousands of miles to sit on the shelves for an unknown amount of time.

Today’s consumers have even been shown to shell out more for the increased benefits of quality, transparency, and peace of mind.

It’s a fundamentally better product and it should be priced accordingly.

It’s important to remember that pricing is as much about customer perception as it is about profit margins. Both must be considered and play into how a local farmer communicates their value proposition through branding marketing.

The bottom line: Your pricing should match the quality of your product, not the status quo. With the right system and distribution strategy, the local product you produce should be better than anything else on the shelves and it should be priced to reflect the increase in value.

By growing and selling locally, our farmers are delivering a fundamentally different product, one that eliminates the unknowns and gives customers peace of mind.

3) Focus on trying to do one thing well.

A common pitfall of many vertical farms is attempting to do too many things at once. They want to grow food for market while productizing and selling the technology they’re using to grow their food.

The lesson may seem to only apply to bigger farms, but we’ve seen this time and time again with small producers too, albeit in different ways.

Know your “why”.

New farmers must understand they have only one goal:

Sell good food. Everything else comes second.

The more time, attention, and money you spend trying to productize the system you’re growing with, the less time you have to delight your customers with fresh, local food.

The same goes with decisions about which equipment to use to accomplish this goal.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen dozens of hard-working farmers invest their time, energy, and financial resources into half-baked ideas that ultimately fail, taking their money and dreams of starting a farm down at the same time.

Despite flamboyant claims about “plant sites” or some unfathomable acreage equivalent, choosing to use unproven technology is another way new farmers lose focus on what’s important: Their ability to grow and sell food.

The bottom line: Farmers can either grow food or develop technology- not both. Attempting to do both, as shown by all three panelists, ends poorly. Farmers who waste time on unproven systems or tinkering with their own tech instead of acquiring customers will ultimately end up out of business due to losing sight of their core objective: Selling food.

4) Labor is always your biggest cost.

We’ve said it a thousand times: Don’t overlook your labor costs!

Reflecting on their own “shuttered” operations, each of the three panelists echoed this warning about labor with gusto.

Matt Liotta of Podponics event went as far to say that “People are the problem,” when describing the challenges of balancing operating expenses and proper farm management.

All three panelists experienced similar challenges when discussing the workers on their respective farms. While the wages ranged were relatively low (ranging from $9-$15/hr), the costs added up quickly when paired with the growing techniques in use.

Many of the failed farms in question ignored ergonomics and were the opposite of efficient for humans to be working in. Multi-layered systems with grow beds reaching to the ceiling meant that farmhands had to travel up and down on a scissor lift to perform basic farm operations like planting, inspections, maintenance, and harvesting.

An excerpt from “The 4 Factors of Vertical Farming Success” warning would-be vertical farmers about system configurations increase the cost and complexity of performing basic farm tasks.

And don’t get the panelists started on scissor lifts…

The mere mention of the word sparked a heated conversation ragging on the clunky, expensive, and unclean nature of the machine.

“Scissor lifts are not an ideal solution, stated Mike Nasseri, Harvest Supervisor a Local Garden, a mechanically complex Vancouver-based farm that declared bankruptcyback in 2014. “Don’t use scissor lifts. Find another solution, please.”

Adding to that, Matt Liotta chimed in: “It’s very telling that Aerofarms, the big farm in the news right now is using scissor lifts,” citing the operational constraints of the world’s largest indoor farm. “Absolutely don’t use scissor lifts,” he said.

Of course, if you’ve talked to our team in the last 4 or 5 years, you’ve probably been steered away from these dangerous machines and the inefficient systems that require their use for everyday operations.

We’re much more fond of systems that enable growers to spend less time going up and down on a scissor lift, and more time working with their plants or getting more customers.

But won’t automation solve a lot of the farm labor issues?

Maybe, but probably not. At least not for the majority of small producers.

The fact is automation equipment requires massive capital investments to build and then requires highly skilled labor to operate and maintain it over time — both of which are in short supply at most local farms.

And why rely on automation to make your farm economically viable? That’s a question that tends to stump those obsessed with minimizing the cost of human labor. But perhaps there’s something to it…

Instead of asking how can we lower our operating expenses of performing farm tasks, we should be asking: how can we design a system that doesn’t need automation to function economically?

The bottom line: As a farmer, you need to implement a system that reduces labor costs and does not require you to install and maintain expensive automation technology to be economically viable.

“Don’t use scissor lifts. Find another solution, please.”  — Mike Nasseri

5) Quality farm labor requires quality farm education.

To make the labor equation work, local farmers need a reliable, capable workforce to help them with daily tasks like planting, harvesting, and packaging.

One of the most fiery points made during the entire panel occurred when Matt Liotta discussed his experiences with low-wage labor citing examples of disgruntled farmhands missing work because of court dates and sabotaging the system’s nutrient solution out of frustration. He and Hardej made it very clear that finding and developing quality farm laborer is critical to operating a farm with as few hiccups as possible.

But finding capable labor to make a local farm work is a difficult task, especially if you as the farmer aren’t exactly an expert yourself.

Things like how to grow hydroponically, how to find customers, and how to manage your farm business are all areas that most farmers need help with.

That’s part of the reason why we createdUpstart Universityover two years ago.

At that time, we had been working with farmers long enough to know that there were some significant, yet common gaps in the knowledge of both our farmers and their workers.

The courses we began creating back then are now helping over 1,200 students learn how to plan, launch and operate a modern farm every month for the price of a few coffees each month.

The bottom line: It should be clear by now that labor poses a significant challenges for local farmers and hiring workers without the knowledge they need to succeed will only pour fuel on the fire. To continue growing at the trajectory it’s currently on, the indoor/vertical farming industry will need even more accessible education opportunities for training and developing their farm laborers as well as business managers.

6) Treat your farm like process.

One of the biggest arguments we made in the 4 Factors of Vertical Farm Success (a free ebook), was the importance of creating an efficient farm layout and workflow. The same sentiment was echoed throughout the presentation by all three panelists.

Treating the farm like a manufacturing process, as opposed to an art form, means that you’re treating it like an optimization problem.

In today’s technology-based modern farming world, we all know that production is not the problem.

Growing in controlled environments and providing proper plant nutrition allows modern farmers to produce crops with astounding consistency and quality.

The real issue these three farmers faced was not “Can we grow it?” but “How do we run the growing operation efficiently and minimize cost?”

These are two fundamentally different questions with the second incorporating the complexity of humans working on the farm.

An excerpt from “The 4 Factors of Vertical Farming Success” on the importance of treating your farm like a manufacturing process to increase labor efficiency.

As mentioned above, the conventional way of “vertical farming” that uses stacked layers puts farm owners and their laborers at the mercy of expensive and dangerous scissor lifts in order to access their crops.

These types of production methods are totally inefficient because of the time spent traveling up and down aisles and between layers to do everything from the initial planting all the way to the harvest, and everything in between. Such complicated workflows reduce efficiency and increase labor costs,

When asked what he would do differently the next time around, Paul Hardej of FarmedHere said he would avoid building such a tall system that requires lifts to provide basic access.

Instead, he would think about any future vertical farm as first and foremost a “manufacturing and production process.”

The bottom line: When evaluating farm equipment options, it’s important to see past production. Every system can grow crops, but not every system can optimize your workflows and maximize labor efficiencies. We discuss this idea in much more detail in the 4 Factors of Vertical Farm Success.

7) Data is useless unless you can put it to work.

There seems to be an entire subset of the rapidly growing AgTech industry that is straight-up batty over data. And rightly so.

The proliferation of sensors and cameras to glean ever more data from a controlled environment farming operation is opening up new doors for improving yields and process.

The problem, however, comes with an obsession of collecting data without an intended use or without the hardware behind it to leverage it effectively.

What’s more is that these types of data collection systems require significant amounts of capital and time to deploy, time and money that most local farmers don’t have.

Data helps inform decisions, but don’t bet the farm on it.

Data is actually the one area that granted each of these “shuttered farms” some hope.

Podponics, for example, used data to analyze and augment their production technique for lettuce to reduce labor time during the harvest.

FarmedHere also leveraged data systems to collect and provide helpful insights to improve their farm’s yields.

Both farms stated that while new technology can certainly be used to the advantage of a new farmer, data and tech alone won’t save you. It’s up to the grower to find a system that produces the yields they need at the cost they can afford to sell to the customers they’ve found that are demanding it. And right now, no single data-driven growing solution can remove the farmer from this set of skills.

The bottom line: Local farmers should not rely on data to save them from an inefficient farm setup or their inability to sell their crops. Data can amplify and accelerate a farmer’s production and sales, but only if they have the infrastructure in place to use if effectively.

8) Is Organic dead yet?

For a long time, our team has been coaching farmers to reconsider the cost of an Organic certification and instead spend that time and money working to form real relationships with customers.

Why? It’s not that we don’t see the value in the certification on it’s own, we just have yet to meet a customer who wants organic food.

What customers really want is transparency and to trust that the food they buy and consume is safe, nutritious, and grow in ways they can support.

They don’t want a label, they want certainty. We’ve been given a label as a proxy but what we wanted was trust and security.

Buying from a local farmer gives them greater feelings of security because they can visit their farm and shake their hand.

That’s part of the reason why Liotta stated that “local is worth more than organic.”

This statement promptly triggered another back and forth between the Podponics CEO and the FarmedHere Founder as they discussed everything from consumer perceptions to pesticide use.

And yet, Hardej, who helped FarmedHere become the first Organic-certified aquaponic farms in the U.S.,— a feat that demands the respect and gratitude from anyone in the modern farming movement — had a different opinion on the value to consumers. He knows first hand that consumers want to buy brands they feel are the healthiest and safest option and that often means organic.

In the end, however, he too conceded that “local is the new organic.”

The bottom line: Consumers have lost trust in the conventional ways of growing food and labels like organic are a poor and increasingly confusing substitute for true transparent farmer-consumer relationship. This type of trust and transparency is only truly available with local options.

9) Greenhouse vs. indoor? Aquaponics vs. hydroponics? It’s not that simple.

Towards the end of the panel, there was some discussion about production techniques and facility types and which was the best for modern growers.

The table was divided along the typical lines of aquaponics vs. hydroponics with arguments lobbed in each direction about which was a viable commercial technique when aiming for profitable production.

There was also some discussion about the marginal cost of producing food in a greenhouse vs. an indoor facility, with the bias towards indoor, highly controlled production.

From our experience, however, getting into a philosophical discussion along each of these battle lines doesn’t end up going anywhere.

There will always be those outspokenindividuals who prefer one over the other and don’t hesitate to tell you which one youshould choose for your farm.

But the important thing to remember is that every situation, every location, and every local market is unique and so should be approach when making these two fundamental decisions.

As a new startup farmer, it’s your responsibility to evaluate your unique situation objectively. That includes your climate, your initial investment, your desired level of operating complexity (aquaponics, of course, being slightly more complex production technique), the cost of electricity in your area, your market’s sensitivities about price and preferences, etc.

Our team has helped hundreds of farmers make this decision through an advanced costs/conditions calculator and we can help you too if you need more than just a talking head for guidance. We even have a free webinar that helps walk you through this exact question.

The bottom line: Everyone has their own answer to these two questions. To establish a successful farm, you must eliminate subjectivity from the decision and evaluate all your variables carefully to avoid choosing a technique or facility that reduces your ability to flourish.

Conclusion: The future is bright for vertical farming

If you’ve been paying attention to the vertical farming industry over the last few years, you know that it’sjust starting to take off.

There are new companies emerging every day promising to deliver new solutions in every subcategory from growing equipment, lighting technology, climate controls, data, sensors, automation, consulting, and much more.

If one thing is clear from this post, it’s that we’re all still learning. That’s the beauty of fast-growth, nascent industries.

Vertical farming, in a lot of ways, is the next frontier of agriculture.

It’s one of the most promising ways to get fresh food into our cities and food-insecure places like Alaska and other often overlooked food deserts.

By exerting more control over the growing environment, making better use of our resources, and implementing smart, labor-efficient growing technology, I believe we’ll see some tremendous strides made toward greater access to better food for anyone who wants it.

I personally want to thank the three panelists involved in the Aglanta event for their courage, selflessness, and willingness to talk about what are undoubtedly painful outcomes to ideas they invested much of their lives pursuing.

It’s through collaborative forces that we’ll be able to keep pushing the boundaries of what vertical farming is and how it can help us achieve amazing things.

Ready to get started in vertical farming?

Here are few places to start:

Upstart University & The Upstart University Blog — As mentioned above, this is an online learning platform for aspiring modern farmers who are serious about starting their own farming business. The courses are all super accessible and we add new material every month. It’s seriously the best (and cost effective!) investment you can make if you’re ready to move from idea to business. Join over 1,200 students for $9.99/mo or just start by reading our helpful blog posts for free.

“Hydroponic Food Production” by Howard Resh — This is a great guide for serious hydroponic growers. Resh wrote the book on hydroponic farming (literally) and you’d be wise to pick up a copy for those tricky soil-less growing questions.

Bright Agrotech’s eBooks (some free, some paid) — Over the last 5 years, our organization has worked with hundreds of modern farmers starting and scaling vertical farms. In the process, we’ve identified some of their toughest challenges and created high-quality ebooks, guides, and even workshops to help them find solutions. We’ve got guides on business planning, post-harvest produce handling, and full crop guides that tell you what specific crops need to grow successfully in hydroponic systems. Again, these resources are not for the average hobbyist just looking for low-quality, anecdotal info on the internet. These are for serious growers that are seeking real results.

Over 300+ free videos on YouTube — If you’re looking for answers to specific questions or more insight into what makes farms using ZipGrow technology work, you can swing over to our YouTube channel where you’ll find over 5 years worth of dedicated modern farming content. We started the channel way back in 2011 because we were sick of all the BS out there in the aquaponic growing niche and we decided to do something about it. Over 5 years later, we continue to push out 2–3 videos per week on topics ranging from indoor farming, LED lighting technology, quick tips from real farmers, and much more. Check it out and hit subscribe if you find these helpful.

Ever Thought of Growing What You Eat? These Chennai-Based NIT Grads Are Enabling Urban Indoor Farmers To Do Just That

Ever Thought of Growing What You Eat? These Chennai-Based NIT Grads Are Enabling Urban Indoor Farmers To Do Just That

SINDHU MV

22 FEBRUARY 2017
This announcement is sponsored by Tissot

When Deepak Srinivasan and Ashish Khan were studying at NIT Trichy, they were driven by a passion to solve some of the most basic problems the world faces today. Life, though, had other plans for them after they graduated. Deepak, a chemical engineer, worked as a product analyst and Ashish, a mechanical engineer, as a design engineer. The idea of creating something that would have immense impact remained. The duo – friends for over six years – experimented with various ideas before deciding to collaborate with a group of friends on a DIY project to localise food production.

Eventually, Deepak and Ashish narrowed this down to explore the possibilities offered by aquaponics, and began developing a prototype. Aquaponics is a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish or other aquatic creatures supplies the nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which in turn purify the water.

Nine months down the line, in March 2016, they quit their jobs to begin their entrepreneurial journey, and launched their startup – Crofters. The startup’s flagship device is an intelligent, self-cleaning, indoor aquaponics ecosystem that helps to grow completely organic food even from inside a living room.

Deepak says, “Crofters helps people farm their fresh, healthy food in a sustainable manner. We are making urban indoor farming a reality for a lot of passionate gardeners living in houses without a backyard or a terrace of their own.”

This innovation won them the Tissot's Signature Innovators Club award for January 2017.

The young entrepreneurs are very upbeat about their product and the impact it is likely to create. In Deepak’s words, “We are innovating mankind’s oldest industry –  agriculture, by combining it with the power of technology. Through our product, we feel we are making it practical for people to grow what they eat.”

‘Grow light’ an integral component of Crofters’ journey

Crofters has created hardware and software that integrates with a device and enables people to grow their own food. It took them six months of prototyping to develop their first product and another three months to make it ready for the early adopters.

Together, with 15 early adopters, who are beta testing the product, Crofters is gathering and incorporating user feedback to make the product market-ready. Deepak says, “We are aiming to launch the product by the end of February 2017.”

The product’s greatest strength is their LED grow light technology, which has been developed in-house. The co-founders say that this technology will help to convert indoor farming areas in urban living spaces into farms and reduce water consumption by 80 percent, paving the way for practical vertical farming making optimal use of available spaces. “The grow light technology and the product design makes farming possible in areas previously considered unsuitable for farming. These are our unique strengths,” says 23-year old Deepak.

While the LED grow light is one of their key product highlights, a few months ago, in the prototyping phase, it was the biggest challenge for the team. Ashish says, “Initially, we found it challenging to develop world-class LED grow lights that mimic sunlight for efficient growth of plants indoors. Through our continuous R&D, we now have created grow lights that use only the red and blue spectra to mimic sunlight in an efficient manner.”

A year that could define Crofters’ market success

The Crofters team comprises six members, who work on automation, design, and engineering. As far as the co-founders’ key responsibilities are concerned, Deepak handles operations and management, while Ashish handles product development.

As the Crofters team continues to fine-tune the product for its market launch, they are seeing regular visitors at their office in Chennai, who are all keen to experience the product. Deepak spends his afternoons in client meetings and interacting with suppliers for sourcing raw materials, followed by product deliveries in the evenings.

Crofters’ products are currently only available online with door-to-door delivery and service. They also have a consumables model where people order add-ons and additional accessories regularly. In the past three months, since the launch of their early adopter programme, apart from successfully onboarding 15 early adopters, they have been getting queries from across the globe. Deepak says, “We are hoping to have at least 200 clients in the next six months and make the product globally shippable by the end of the year.”

Sharing details of their marketing, sales, and product development plan, Ashish says, “We are currently partnering with online distributors to make our product available on other online platforms as well. We are also coming up with a series of products available at various price ranges to help us increase the reach. And, the option to buy add-ons from our own online platform will enable to push up our revenues.” As a near long-term plan, Crofters is also looking at collecting system data that will help them scale for larger urban farms. “In the next two years, Crofters will be launching large-scale urban farm products to make fresh healthy food locally available.”

Talking about the growth potential for Crofters, Deepak says, “Vertical farming is expected to reach $5.5 billion by 2020.The factors driving the growth of the vertical farming market include the demand for high-quality food with no use of pesticides, less dependency on the weather for production, a growing urban population, and interest in farming with reduced negative environmental impact, among others. And Crofters fits in beautifully here.”

He adds, “While the concept of indoor farming, be it small scale or large scale, is yet to catch up in India, we are seeing a lot of conversations around it. And soon, the conversations will convert into interest and thereby demand for a product like ours.”

Making indoor farming simple

Among the many things that make the Crofters team happy is seeing their customers happy. Narrating a customer story that the team considers has been part of Crofters journey, says Ashish. “When we were designing the Crofters Ecosystem, one of our friends gifted our ecosystem to his dad, Shanmugam, who after retiring, was exploring indoor farming but facing difficulties with conventional methods.” Ashish calls Shanmugam ‘a dream customer any startup would want’, because, “he was patient and understanding, kept answering the questions that the Crofter’s team were continually seeking to improve their ecosystem.” And, in the past five months, Shanmugam has been successfully growing various leafy greens and herbs using Crofters’ product. “For him and his family, the Ecosystem has become part of their life. He spends his evening around the Ecosystem enjoying nature right inside his home. This is a highlight for us,” says Ashish.

Delving on the role of innovation for Crofters, Ashish says, “We have built an intelligent, self-cleaning, aquaponics systems that helps people grow completely organic food in the comfort of their homes. We have combined nature and technology to build intelligent systems with a mobile app and sensor units that help control and monitor all ecosystem parameters remotely. And all this comes with zero-maintenance. Innovation plays a major role; in fact, innovation forms the core of our business.”

The two youngsters feel every inch of their effort has been worthwhile. “The idea that we will empower people to grow their own food is exciting. The idea motivates us to keep going.”

He explains that people have been able to grow varieties of leafy greens, herbs, and other small plants for their consumption in an effortless manner, which previously was a cumbersome process. “We have bought food home again,” gleams the young entrepreneur. “Products like ours will play a role in shaping the lifestyle of the generations to come and take notice of the quality of food we eat.”

This Startup Wants M'sian Urbanites To Get Down And Dirty With Indoor Farming

This Startup Wants M'sian Urbanites To Get Down And Dirty With Indoor Farming

Ellia Pikri

The idea of farming, even just growing vegetables to feed your own family is seen as something that is done in the countryside by humble farmers and to some urbanites, embodies unrewarding physical labour.

This is the stigma that CityFarm team Jayden Koay, Johanson Chew and Looi Choon Beng are fighting to dispel in their startup journey.

Johanson was the first among the team to wet his toes in urban farming, but eventually all three of them were building their own farms in 2015.

“Initially, there was a challenge where it was difficult to find hydroponics equipment and supplies,” said Jayden. “This triggered us to form an entity to help all urban farming enthusiasts.”

“We soon realised that there is a bigger purpose behind urban farming. Soon there will be food source crisis due to rising population, pollution and climate change.”

Now aware of the environmental impact that urban farming could have in helping the populations in the future, the team were determined to take action. So over one casual teh tarik session between the three friends and urban farmers, they decided to join forces and form an urban farming business, which led to CityFarm’s launch in July last year.

Urban farming technology, especially Hydroponics (the process of growing plants without soil, usually in water) is not a new concept to Malaysia from an agricultural standpoint, but what sets CityFarm apart as an urban farming concept is that they are making it convenient for the individual layman to start growing their own crops indoors.

Rising Populations Pose A Starvation Danger

It is hard to imagine this now in an era where obesity is an issue inflicting more than just first world countries, but as the population continues to grow exponentially over the years, current agricultural practices might not be enough to supply food for everyone.

The world population is projected to grow to 9.7 billion by 2050, and in Malaysia, 60% of the population will be living in urban areas, and will continue to rise with growth and rapid urbanisation. Cities grow ever-packed with people, and space is becoming an ever valuable commodity.

According to Cityfarm, “80% of cultivated land is already in use. Moreover, extreme weather patterns and devastated crops create higher food prices, and consumers become more conscious on how their foods are produced now.”

This is where urban agriculture comes in, to utilise the ever-valuable space.

“We are seeing increasing interest of the market in this field.” said Johanson. “In light of a recently banned pesticide found in local vegetables and flooding, the public is getting more health and environmentally conscious. Urbanisation is inevitable and we estimate interest in urban farming will keep going up. We intend keep this trend going by studying strategies used other countries where urban farming is more mature like US and Japan.”

“Urban farming is still considered as infant stage in Malaysia where market adoption rate will be relatively low due to low awareness. Hence, we have series of go-to-market strategies that focus on public awareness, e.g. classes for students and public and exhibitions.” said Looi Choon Beng.

For those who are interested in picking up urban farming, the listing of products available on the CityFarm website may seem daunting for the beginner. The team understands that this is a budding concept in Malaysia and offers classes to help Malaysians pick up the hobby.

Currently available is a hydroponics farming course with a free farm set for RM349.90, but for any corporates or even individuals who want to see how its done, CityFarm offers a tour of their farm, which, according to Johanson, “is where we give our customers tours and see our product in use”.

And while CityFarm is not yet a year into launch, they are currently into rapid expansion mode which, according to Johanson, refers to:

• Efforts on public awareness (classes and exhibitions)
• Enrichment of product catalog (new products)
• Partnership with developers on eco projects
• Build and operate farm with strategic partners
• Physical store expansion

So since urban farming, is as the team describes, “in its infancy in Malaysia,” how are they doing in terms of sales? To this, Looi Choon Beng says that “Our SEO and SEM has been very successful so far. The overwhelming majority of conversions are coming from these channels and we are seeing on average a 20% increase in revenue every month since we started.”

CityFarm is not an SME exactly, but the team has big ideas to help Malaysia catch up with first-world countries like Japan and USA. Getting Malaysians to pick up a new habit such as this might be tough for the team, so they’re expending a lot of effort into public education to increase the absorption rate of urban farming among the locals.

A Farm In Shipping Containers Grows In Brooklyn

A Farm In Shipping Containers Grows In Brooklyn

POSTED:FEB 21 2017 06:50PM EST

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - It's farm to table with a twist. A parking lot in Brooklyn isn't the first place you'd expect to see spinach and arugula sprouting up but here they are. Hydroponic vertical farms are growing crops inside 10 steel shipping containers in the same neighborhood where Jay Z grew up.

But that is not where the cool factor ends. Square Roots takes things one step further by sending a farmer to your office with snack-sized bags of salad the same day the greens are harvested.

Square Roots CEO Tobias Peggs thought up the idea with co-founder Kimball Musk, brother of entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk. The duo raised $3 million in seed capital to build out this campus, and recruited 10 young farmer entrepreneurs from a pool of 500 to work for a year. The idea is to grow their own careers with Square Roots and in turn help the company grow, too.

A farm in shipping containers grows in Brooklyn

Square Roots aims to expand to 20 metropolitan areas by 2020.