Downtown Restaurants Growing Ingredients Right On-Site

Downtown Restaurants Growing Ingredients Right On-Site

By Todd Lihou  |  August 10, 2017

Michael Baird, left, of ESCA Gourmet Pizza + Bar, and Eric Lang of Zipgrow Canada, in front of the farm wall located on the ESCA patio.

CORNWALL, Ontario – A pair of downtown restaurants have partnered with a local firm to offer fresh products grown right on-site for hungry customers.

That’s right – the food is being grown on-site…in some cases right beside your table.

Truffles Burger Bar and ESCA Gourmet Pizza + Bar have partnered with Zipgrow Canada and installed a farm wall at each location.

The self-contained vertical gardens are currently growing kale and basil, which is used in food-preparation at both restaurants.

So far the response from patrons has been two thumbs up.

“Our kitchen love it, the staff love it and when we pick from it customers ask about it on the patio,” said ESCA’s Michale Baird. “And it’s fresh.

“The first pesto we made with it, the response was incredible. And it was stuff that grew 20 feet away from where it was being prepared.”

Eric Lang of Zipgrow Canada said his company, which specializes in small systems to grow in your home as well as full-scale commercial farms for warehouses, said the items grown in the farm walls can be customized and tailored depending on the time of year and foodstuffs being prepared.

“We can put in some of the vegetables that like it a little cooler. We can go right up until it is frosty,” he said. “We sell all over the world, but we are from Cornwall and we love these kinds of partnerships locally.”

Stop by Truffles and ESCA this summer and fall to enjoy some delicious offerings made with products grown right on-site.

This Company Wants to Bring Soil-Free Farming to Restaurant Kitchens

This Company Wants to Bring Soil-Free Farming to Restaurant Kitchens

 by Cathy Erway •  2017 

Hydroponics have allowed garden vegetables to grow in novel places—from a pillar inside a Berlin grocery store to a veritable skyscraper of plants in Singapore. The fast-growing, soil-free farming method has been well-embraced in urban areas to produce crops using less water and space, since the plants are grown in a nutrient water solution, rather than in-ground. But rarely is it done within some of the buzziest places for the farm-to-table movement: a restaurant.

The team behind Farmshelf hopes that will soon change, and recently debuted three indoor hydroponic growing units at Grand Central Station’s Great Northern Food Hall. There, the chefs at the busy food market’s Scandinavian restaurant Meyers Bageri reach into the glass-walled cubicles to pick lemon basil for a garnish on their zucchini flatbread, and nearly a dozen varieties of baby lettuces are plucked for salads at the neighboring Almanak vegetable-driven café. And, as it would appear on recent visits, curious bystanders peer through the glass, agape at the billowy mixture of herbs and greens, illuminated by a ceiling of LEDs. Unbeknownst to the casual observer, the units are also outfitted with five cameras along every shelf, so that the Farmshelf team can monitor the plants’ progress from afar and adjust the system via a web application.

“The more plants we grow, the smarter we are about plants,” said Jean-Paul Kyrillos, Farmshelf’s Chief Revenue Officer. He explained that through their data collection, Farmshelf can optimize the growth and flavor of any plants that a client may want. “This is for someone who doesn’t want to be a botanist, or farmer. The system is automatic.”

“Plants can grow two to three times as fast using 90% less water than traditional in-ground farming”

That’s why Farmshelf hopes its units will be a boon for restaurants serving greens galore. Founded in 2016 by CEO Andrew Shearer, Farmshelf is just planting its roots in the New York City restaurant industry with its first partner, Meyers USA hospitality group. The startup was in the inaugural lineup of the Urban-X accelerator and is part of the Urban Tech program at New Lab. The company is looking to partner with more restaurants soon, and Kyrillos mentioned a restaurateur who was excited about the idea of placing a Farmshelf unit right in the dining room, as a partition.

Distribution is the last challenge of getting local food onto plates, and Farmshelf eliminates that entire process—no middleman, forager, or schleps to Union Square Greenmarket. Kyrillos is hopeful that the efficiency of hydroponics—where plants can grow two to three times as fast using 90% less water than traditional in-ground farming—will also convince restaurants of the value of placing such a system on-site. Then, there is the potential of growing ingredients that you could never get locally, like citrus; or mimicking the terroir of, say, Italy, through a special blend of nutrients and conditions within the units.

Green City Growers in Cleveland, OH, has a 3.25-acre hydroponic greenhouse. Photo by Flickr/Horticulture Group

With hydroponics, you can grow a plethora of vegetables, even root vegetables like turnips, carrots, radishes, but these take much longer, and thus not suited to the fast-paced restaurant environment Farmshelf is trying to service. Crops that take up a lot of space, like watermelon and pole beans, are also not ideal, as the point is for these systems to use space efficiently (though future designs of hydroponic units might be able to tackle this challenge). It's most cost-effective to grow delicate, highly perishable, expensive leafy greens than roots, which are quick to grow and easy to ship and store.

The possibilities seem endless. But, in an age when the small family farm is rapidly disappearing in the US—and faces further threat from a recent White House budget proposal that would eliminate crop insurance—would this technology take away business from local farms, which restaurants might otherwise buy from?

Hydroponics—The Future of Farming in Detroit?by Lindsay-Jean Hard

Kyrillos doesn’t see Farmshelf as a replacement for the local farmer. There are some six to eight months of the year where traditional farms can’t grow too many crops, so restaurants would buy leafy greens and other warm-season produce elsewhere. If anything, Kyrillos posited that it might chip away at business from some of the bigger food distributors.

But time will have to tell what best works for the soon-to-be users of Farmshelf. Right now, the company is hoping to sell restaurants at least three growing units to make a significant enough impact on its kitchen orders. Rather than leaving it at that, Farmshelf wants to work with restaurants through a sort of subscription-based service, supplying seeds for crops that the restaurant would like to grow and monitoring the growing process consistently. Could a chef go rogue, and use the unit to plant and harvest whatever, whenever he pleased? Perhaps—but that wouldn’t really be taking advantage of the full product, which the team estimates might cost around $7,000 per unit (a medium-sized restaurant might need three units, at $21,000), which would pay off in ingredient costs.

 From $30

And how about home chefs? When will average consumers be able to place Farmshelf inside our cramped, outdoor space-free apartments? That’s in the vision for Farmshelf someday. Not just homes, but school classrooms or cafeterias could be future sites of these hydroponic shelves, Kyrillos suggested, offering an easy, indoor way to connect youngsters to the food on their plates. “Imagine children were watching food grow, all the time.”

TAGS: HYDROPONICS, TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, GRAND CENTRAL

Shenandoah Growers Opens Texas Indoor Production Facility

Shenandoah Growers Opens Texas Indoor Production Facility

July 13 , 2017

Virginia-based organic culinary herb grower and producer Shenandoah Growers (SGI) claims it is “set to transform the distribution of highly perishable produce”.

Through a proprietary combination of automated greenhouses and indoor LED vertical grow rooms to produce more than 30 million certified organic plants per year, SGI has now brought a third indoor growing facility online.

The new facility, located in Texas, is the latest component of SGI’s innovative hub-and-spoke farming and distribution system, and only the most recent step in the company’s three-year, multi-million-dollar nationwide expansion of indoor farming.

The group claims the system is quickly scalable for market growth, allowing Shenandoah Growers to “locally deliver certified organic superior flavor and shelf life at a fraction of the capital cost of other indoor farms”.

“This indoor farm, and the two others in our system, are critical elements of how Shenandoah Growers is transforming the way perishable produce is grown and distributed,” SGI CEO Timothy Heydon said in a release.

“With the integration of our modular indoor growing technology into our existing national footprint, we can grow amazing certified organic produce that delivers fresh flavor to consumers in a sustainable way, minimizing inputs of water, bio-media, land resources, and food miles. 

“We are proud to be a part of transforming agriculture production and distribution for the future.”

SGI’s Rockingham, Virginia farm complex serves as the eastern hub of a nationwide growing system, and with a farming and supply chain platform spanning the country, the group claims its indoor farms cover the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South Central market.

The group continues the expansion of its farms, greenhouses and the implementation of an indoor farming hub and spoke system on the West Coast, with completion expected in 2018.  

www.freshfruitportal.com

Vertical farms: "Making Nature Better"

Vertical farms: "Making Nature Better"

PORTAGE, Indiana -- Do not be confused by the drab facade of the warehouse in this Northwest Indiana industrial park. It's a farm... and it could well be the future. They're called "vertical farms" -- The entire operation is indoors, and it's a trend that could turn urban areas into agricultural hotbeds.

Workers at the Green Sense Farms warehouse in Portage, Indiana.

CBS NEWS

You'll find arugula and parsley, basil, kale and other greens that grace our plates.

"We are growing nine varieties of lettuces,'' said Robert Colangelo, the founder of Green Sense Farms.

Or you could call him Mr. Salad.

 Bob Colangelo  CBS NEWS

"I guess. I'll take that. I could be called worse," says Colangelo.

This is how he does it, with a pink light from a light-emitting diode, or LED

"It gives you a very concentrated amount of light and burns much cooler. And it's much more energy efficient," says Colangelo.

No sun? No problem.

Researchers believe plants respond best to the blue and red colors of the spectrum, so the densely-packed plants are bathed in a pink and purple haze. They're moistened by recycled water; bolstered by nutrients; and anchored in a special mix of ground Sri Lankan coconut husks.

"We take weather out of the equation," says Colangelo. "We can grow year round and we can harvest year-round."

This abundance keeps the prices consistent year-round at local groceries.

Scott Hinkle, a local chef, says the sunless harvest tastes great. Hinkle shows off a "blossom salad" he serves which can include watercress, micro-arugula or kale.

With less water and fertilizer, fewer workers and no gasoline, it's more economical to grow greens this way than on a traditional farm.

Since there are no bugs, there's no need for pesticides. No weeds, so no need for herbicides.

And Colangelo really knows his plants. He says workers play classical music to create happy vibes for the flora.

Is there a composer the plants prefer? If it's Metallica, we don't want to eat it.

As to whether he's cheating nature...

"We're making nature better," says Colangelo.

High-Tech Indoor Farm Nabs $20 Million in New Funding

High-Tech Indoor Farm Nabs $20 Million in New Funding

JUNE 14, 2017 09:02 AM

Bowery’s crops are planted indoors in vertical rows and meticulously monitored, “capturing a tremendous amount of data along the way,” according to the company’s website.

© Bowery

By Ben Potter
AgWeb.com

Bowery, an indoor farming company that deploys a lot of high-tech solutions – including propriety software systems, robotics and monitoring plants via machine learning – announces it has secured a Series A funding round of $20 million from several investors, including General Catalyst, GGV and GV.

“Shaping the future of food requires re-imagining the food supply chain from seed to store,” according to Spencer Lazar, partner with General Catalyst. “The Bowery team is pioneering technology that will move the entire agriculture industry forward. We are proud to be in their corner.”

Bowery uses hydroponics practices it says uses 95% less water and is more than a hundred times more productive comparable to the same footprint of land of traditional agriculture. The company also calls the leafy greens it grows “post-organic” – that is, pesticide-free and grown in a completely controlled environment.

Perhaps most importantly – the food tastes good, Lazar says.

“Their produce tastes delightful,” he says. “Their farm economics are exciting, and the conscientiousness of their approach is inspiring.”

Bowery’s crops are planted indoors in vertical rows and meticulously monitored, “capturing a tremendous amount of data along the way,” according to the company’s website. “We’re able to remove the age old reliance on ‘eyeballing.’ We can give our crops exactly what they need and nothing more -- from nutrients and water to light.”

The company sells its produce to nearby restaurants and Whole Foods stores in and around New York City.

Bowery’s CEO, Irving Fain, says he’s thrilled by the level of support the company has received so far. In February, the company announced a separate $7.5 million in total venture funding had also been raised.

The vertical farming market has proven a lucrative one in recent years. According to one market research report, the global vertical farming market is expected to grow to $5.8 billion by 2022, with an annual growth rate of nearly 25% between 2016 and 2022.

Scotland's First Vertical Indoor Farm To Be Operational by Autumn

2017  |Arable,Crops and Cereals,News

Scotland's First Vertical Indoor Farm To Be Operational by Autumn

Scotland’s first vertical indoor farm to be operational by Autumn 2017

An indoor vertical farm in Scotland will be completed in the next few months, the company behind the project has said.Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), the Dundee-based company, says it will make vertical farming - the process of producing food on vertically stacked layers indoors - commercially viable through reduced power and labour costs.The modern ideas of vertical farming use indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology, where all environmental factors can be controlled.These facilities utilise artificial control of light and environmental control, such as humidity, temperature and gases."Vertical farming allows us to provide the exact environmental conditions necessary for optimal plant growth," said Harry Aykroyd, the CEO of IGS."

By adopting the principles of Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA), a system in which all aspects of the growing environment can be controlled, it is possible to eliminate variations in the growing environment, enabling the grower to produce consistent, high quality crops with minimal wastage, in any location, all year round."'Most advanced technology'Omron, an automation company collaborating in the project, said it uses the most advanced technology to solve humanitarian needs.Their Field Sales Engineer Kassim Okera said: "Omron's unique integrated product offering and Sysmac platform combined with extensive market experience, underpin the most innovative vertical farm in the UK which has the potential to be the first vertical farm in the world that is economically viable."Professor Colin Campbell, Chief Executive of the James Hutton Institute commented: "

We are delighted to see how well the work on IGS' indoors growth facility at our Dundee site is progressing."This initiative combines our world-leading knowledge of plant science at the James Hutton Institute and IGS’ entrepreneurship to develop efficient ways of growing plants on a small footprint with low energy and water input.

"Singapore is also considering a huge vertical farm. The city is planning a 250-acre agricultural district, which will function as a space to work, live, shop, and farm food.

The Opportunities and Challenges of Building a Rural Agtech Startup

The Opportunities and Challenges of Building a Rural Agtech Startup

JUNE 21, 2017 LOUISA BURWOOD-TAYLOR

Startup activity in the US is typically concentrated on the two coasts, particularly in California, New York, and Massachusetts, and agtech startups are no different. In 2016, agtech startups in those three states raised 73% of all investment dollars during the year. There are, however, several startups cropping up in America’s rural regions, which can make a lot of sense considering where many of their customers will be. And there are some leading investors moving away from Silicon Valley to find investments, such as AOL founder Steve Case who’s staking a claim on rural entrepreneurs with a new $525 million fund focused on investing outside of New York and San Francisco.

Lisa Benson from the Farm Bureau introduced me to three rural agtech startup entrepreneurs that took part in the Farm Bureau’s Rural Entrepreneurship Challenge last year: Dan Perpich of Vertical Harvest Hydroponics, which is an indoor agricultural startup based in Anchorage, Alaska; Martin Bremmer from Windcall Manufacturing in Venango, Nebraska, who has developed a miniaturized grain combine called the Grain Goat; and Albert Wilde, from Wild Valley Farms in Croyden, Utah, who is producing sheep wool fertilizer from waste wool.

Applications are now open for the 2018 Challenge with a deadline of June 30, 2017, and the opportunity to win $145,000 worth of prizes. You can find out more and apply here.

In this week’s podcast, I speak to the three rural agtech startup entrepreneurs to find out more about the challenges they face launching agtech products from their respective rural bases.

Here’s an abridged transcription of the podcast.

AgFunderNews 
The Opportunities and Challenges of Building a Rural Agtech Startup

Dan Perpich: I am the founder of Vertical Harvest, and we are based in Anchorage, Alaska. We started two and a half years ago, and we started designing and producing and marketing commercial hydroponic systems installed in 40-foot shipping containers, and the reason we did that is because food prices in Alaska and Canada and the North, the Arctic, are out of control. And we thought there was an opportunity to give people the means to farm locally and produce their own food locally and that would be a good market and a valuable product to people. And here we are two and a half years later, and we’re just happy to still be here.

Albert Wilde: I live in Croydon, Utah, and the company that I’ve started is called Wild Valley Farms. We do all sorts of compost, soils, landscaping materials and that, but the product we’ve developed is a natural organic fertilizer that will fertilize for a whole season, and it’ll retain water, reducing the amount of watering by about 25%, and it’s made from waste wool from sheep.

I’m a sheep rancher, and we have 2,800 sheep and 300 head of cows, which is why we started with doing the compost to be able to manage animal waste and make a value-added product for consumers for their gardening and what not. And then when we found that wool was so high in nitrogen that we started working towards trying to make the wool a useable product for an end consumer. So we pelletized it, and we’ve been selling the wool pellets to nurseries and greenhouses and for commercial use. They take the wool pellets and mix it in with their hanging baskets or potted plants that they’re selling to consumers. And then we also bag up the wool pellets and sell directly to consumers and through distribution channels.

Martin Bremmer: I’m in Southwestern Nebraska, and our company’s called Windcall Manufacturing and our first product is called the Grain Goat. It’s essentially a grain combine that’s handheld because it’s very tiny. The purpose of this combine is so that you can sample small amounts of grain, small varieties, rapidly, and then use the onboard moisture meter to tell you what the moisture content of the grain is, enabling you to determine whether or not that field that you just sampled is ready to harvest.

LBT: Thinking about all the startup activity that’s taking place in agtech in San Francisco and New York that you’re all aware of, how do you think building a startup in a rural region compares?

Bremmer: That’s a tough question, but what I’m familiar with in terms of raising raising capital is that there’s always more zeroes attached to the project [on the coasts]. And so there’s different [investor] groups that seem to be targeted by the startups, and the VC groups are pretty well established and have great reputations. They do some incredible due diligence, and when I think about my own personal experience, when we’re doing fundraising for Wind Call Manufacturing, it’s scaled back quite a little bit.

The same process goes on it’s just scaled back in the scope of expectations, which is a huge advantage for us because early stage funding is a little more easily accomplished because there’s more understanding of the dynamic with small companies like ours: our investors understand that the zeroes are going to be smaller, the growth is going to be slower, and they don’t have these rapid slingshot unicorn dreams of what’s going to happen with your company, they get that this is, I don’t want to call it a niche market, but it’s an ag market, so it’s not a mainstream US market. And so I’m not having to redirect their focus and expectations, they already understand that.

Wilde: Most ag startups are building more of a legacy business. They’re focusing on, “I’m gonna build something that helps with the industry that I know and love, and I’m gonna keep this,” more. Whereas a lot of I think the tech side of things, people get into it and there’s not a homegrown part of it. So I guess it’s just, I came up with this technology, and I’m putting it out there, and I don’t care who buys it or how fast and it can go. It can go away from me.

And I think from what I’ve seen with a lot of ag startups is they feel more like they’re building this because they saw a need for something that they love and they want to grow and keep it that way.

And so with different investors, they have to know what your end goal is before they invest in you, and as Martin said, the expectation with a legacy company is much, much lower. The profit, returns… because you’re not looking to come up with an idea and just sell it. You’re looking to come up with an idea and build it.

LBT: Are your investor bases generally local investors, or have you attracted investment from across the country or even the globe?

Wilde: We have a huge potential for growth, and we have some very large companies that are looking to license our product that’ll put it out to a wide distribution for consumers, but all of the investment came from myself or family or partners. And the reason is, I’ve got two partners that have put in $2 million worth of assets, and then for myself I’ve got a ranch and farm, so I’ve received an ag loan from this lender at a 3.8% interest, which I mean is really cheap, but that’s because I have some ag assets that they’re willing to loan that sort of money on. Most investors like a venture capitalist, you tell them that you’ve got funding at 3.8% or 5% or whatever, they know that you’re not interested.

LBT: Dan, how have you funded Vertical Harvest?

Perpich: We’re self-funded, so we put our own money in to start our company, and as we’ve started growing revenue we’ve been able to reinvest and continue development. We’ve been very lucky in that regard. Going back to your first question Louisa, it’s important to remember that farmers are by definition entrepreneurs; a farmer owns and operates his own business, and they may start by getting family loans or owner-funded farms by younger farmers, but I think it’s quite important to remember that. Up here in Alaska, I’d say we’re probably one of the more rural places in the US — some would argue quite remote — and I think it does complicate fundraising a little bit, but there’s still money in the system and I think we’ve got a lot of benefits from the connectivity of today’s world. I may not be able to go down to the row of offices if I’m fundraising but we’ve got email, we’ve got Skype, we’ve got conference calls. I think that stuff has value to us and also has value to our customers.

LBT: If you were to seek external capital where do you think you’d go first? Would you look for local Alaskan investors as the first point of call?

Perpich: My thoughts are that we need to get a strategic benefit out of any investment that we take. If we want just money, we can go to a lot of different places just for money, but we look at what our goals are that we’re trying to accomplish; operationally how do they fit in, can they connect with customers, can they lead a round and bring people to the table?

Just to frame it, we’re in the process of putting together what we’re calling a Series A to grow our workforce, so all those questions are really near to us right now. When we talk to investors we ask them, are you going to bring us sales people, are you gonna bring us customers, are you going to bring us other investors?

I think it’s important that we don’t just go and take the first guy that’s got money because from my experience the geography isn’t just limited to the West Coast, the geography is North America, the world. And there are quite a few people out there, and so if we just go to the guy down the street and he connects me to more people in Alaska, what value does that bring to me?

Bremmer: I’ve got a question for you Dan, just because where you live you could attract Canadian investors just as easily as US investors, so does that throw an added layer of complexity if you pulled in some Canadian interest?

Perpich: You know it does, but that’s all a solvable problem. If a guy from Canada wants to invest in my business, there are some questions such as are we gonna open an office there? Are we gonna do the investment in Canadian dollars or US dollars? You know, he’d have to answer some questions about mitigating currency risk because the Canadian dollar goes up and down against the US dollar. So there are questions but I think those are all solvable problems and quite frankly, if you know a guy who’s Canadian and wants to invest in me, I mean, you want to shoot us an email and connect us? [laughs]

Bremmer: I’ll send him your way. [laughs]

LBT: So, what would you say have been the main challenges that you’ve faced in launching your businesses and getting them to where they are today? And, what do you foresee as being the challenges going forward, if those challenges shift and change?

Wilde: So I think the most difficult part of being an ag startup is actually developing the product itself. I mean, I think each of us has a product that has to be manufactured, a physical thing that you’re actually building, and for myself, like I said my partners had invested $2 million, which is all in the equipment to be able to produce the product that I have. That’s a little different than, like, other tech things, startups, where it’s more of a technology and not just a physical product itself.

And so trying to get people to believe in you, or to believe in your product or even to know why it’s better or why it’s going to help before you have a real prototype, makes it very challenging that way. And I think that’s probably one of the most challenging for an early, early stage ag startup. Then, once you get your prototype and you start to build those prototypes, it’s being able to put it into more of a mass production and then like Dan mentioned, the salesforce; trying to get a salesforce out there to be able to sell your product so you can take in the materials you need to build you product but also have someone out there selling it so that your inventory doesn’t eat you alive.

LBT: What would you say are the benefits to you being based in Croydon, Utah? Are you near your customer base, or is it near the source of your product?

Wilde: I don’t know if there’s all that much advantage to it, [except] being connected through agriculture. As a sheep producer, I’ve been invited to a number of the different wool grower conventions around the country to inform them, the other sheep producers, about my product and what I’m doing in actually buying waste wool from them and entering a value added product. And that’s a huge benefit over anyone else [that might produce this product], the greenhouses or whatever, they’re like, “Oh, we really like this product, maybe we could do it,” and I’m like, well, okay, but for them they’re gonna have to go to a wool warehouse where the cost is going to be much more expensive, and I can go directly to buy the materials. So that’s a huge advantage just being in ag in that way.

Bremmer: There are two main challenges that jump into my forethoughts. One is because we’re a new product with a new market, we really have to push hard and shovel a lot of coal into the fire for what we call educational outreach – most folks would just call it flat-out marketing – we need to get our product in the mind of all our potential customers just because we don’t have competing products, and so we’ve spent a lot of our time educating farmers as to the advantage and the asset of purchasing our product to make their world a little bit easier and make some savings actually happen on their balance sheet. And so the huge challenge there is just because of the time, the energy, and the dollars it takes to execute that effort.

And then our number two challenge is keeping our cost of goods down. Because we’re manufacturing a mechanical device, the cost of goods can always come down a little bit. And it’s nice where we live; we’re in Nebraska so we can take advantage of the multitude of manufacturers in Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado, where we can actually make them compete against each other to keep our cost of goods down when we’re subbing out a lot of parts. So that’s a huge asset to us because we live in a low cost of living part of the US and so the manufacturers in a 500-mile circle from our home base actually turn out quality products for much, much less than if we were on either coast and using the same skill set manufacturers. So huge advantage there but still driving that cost of goods down in a big deal for us; being a startup, we cannot make purchases in volumes that would really make a difference, not yet at least. And so as soon as we drive some sales further and faster, then maybe we can take advantage of that.

LBT: To go back to your first point Martin — the bit about the adoption rate — this is something that I think a lot of investors look at as being particularly challenging in agriculture, because with a lot of products you’ve only got one growing season a year, so one time for the farmers to test the product or even for you to iterate on the development of your product.

I’m also wondering how much behavioral change is required for them to adopt your technology and use that in the field, before harvest. What is your sense on that and how quickly that could happen?

Bremmer: Behavioral change is paramount for what we’re trying to sell, because we’re actually asking grain farmers to change their harvesting habits and I have to kind of draw out farmers in general, but especially grain farmers because that’s who I’m familiar with; that’s an unusual market on a good day.

Because we’ve got a group of smart people, sometimes they’re highly educated, sometimes they’re not, but they’re very traditional, and they’re very family-based businesses, and so we have lot of customers who run multi-million dollar family corporations with very little marketing education and business marketing education or just overall most farmers aren’t MBAs. And they like it that way, so they do everything by the gut, or they do everything traditionally. And so it’s a bit of a bullish kind of audience, where we have to show up at the trade show and get these folks to open their minds a bit and say, “You need to change a habit that you’ve had for the last 30 years, to improve your balance sheet.” And I can watch their eyes glaze over for a minute, and then once I get past that, they start thinking a little bit and then their business mind, their common-sense mind, kicks in, and then I have them because they start to realize oh, there is a change.

But it’s funny how you can split that demographic down into age, because anybody 55 and older, they’re pretty resistant to it. But between 30-55, they’re open to it, and they think about it, but younger than that they haven’t really had enough experience on the family farm to really understand the impact of a tool like what we are selling.

LBT: What is it that suddenly gets through to them? Are you throwing figures at them and saying that you’ll actually help them increase their revenues by x percent, or whatever?

Bremmer: The way I crack through that force field that they’ve got is by using their Achilles heel. The one thing that you can appeal to a farmer with is, what are their expenses, and is there a way that you can minimize their expense?. So that’s our biggest asset from a marketing point of view; we’re able to get the farmer to actually recount to us a story where they wasted a lot of time or a lot of money on a particular season, and by using our tool they would have eliminated that entire scenario, and that’s what gets me in the front door of their mind so that they can realize, oh my gosh yeah, maybe this is kind of an arcane method that we’ve been doing for years. Maybe there’s a new tool like the Grain Goat that avoids that risk. And so now we’ve got the cost savings that makes them go okay, I can see the value of this.

LBT: Dan, tell me about your challenges in getting Vertical Harvest Hydroponics set up?

Perpich: Oh, man, Louisa, I don’t even know where to start on that question [laughs]. You know I’ve got to say I figure if you google, “Basic entrepreneur mistakes,” we’ll probably put a checkmark next to just about every single one of them.

There a lot of pitfalls that you can just jump into, a lot of black holes and time wasting. I think our biggest challenge is that our product is sort of in a lot of ways a new paradigm shift. A lot of people are used to the idea of food being grown outside of Alaska, far away, and so to have technology that can do it at places where – I mean we’ve got the first hydroponic farm above the Arctic Circle, and it was growing food successfully for the market at 50 below zero this year. Kudos to our customers for being the first people to bring the technology out there because it’s a risky and daunting task. And I think the challenges show the customers that not only is it possible, it’s not only something you read about in a science publication or a science magazine, but it’s actually real and you can do it.

The challenge I guess is showing people to the point where they don’t just see it and think, “Wow that’s a cool thing,” but to the point where they see it, and they say, “That’s a cool thing, and I want it, and I want to do that, and that’s how I want to support my family.”

It’s definitely one of our challenges for sure. And going back to what I think Martin had mentioned about when you hit a certain age demographic, a lot of the farmers are maybe not as interested. We’ve definitely seen that as well, sort of the older farmers that we’ve dealt with, the guys in their 50s and 60s, their sort of note is, “That’s very cool, and I think it is the future, but at my age, I’m not up for an adventure.” And so we’ve definitely seen most interest from the younger farmers, the next generation of farmers. And if there was anything that I could make a very brash pitch about, I’d say what would be helpful for those guys is if they had access to cheaper money, because what we’ve seen with our technologies is that they’re very new, and the low-risk institutions like banks, traditional financing sources, don’t want to finance them yet, so they’re left with more expensive sources of money. And that’s gonna change, we hope, but we’d like it to change faster of course.

LBT: So who are your main customers?

Perpich: Right now they’re either current farmers and people that want to be farmers. And a lot of what we’ve found in Alaska anyway is the people that want to be farmers are corporations that have employees in these communities and want to grow their revenue streams, or they have a local interest in the community, and they’re willing to take the risk because of the benefits to the communities. Definitely, people are on the lower edge of the age demographic; I’d say 20s-40s in that range.

LBT: And is the fact that how you’re growing the produce indoors, organically, or non-GMO or pesticide free, etc: is that a big draw do you think for some of the farmers? To be able to get some of those price premiums?

Perpich: You know, it’s very attractive to farmers in the lower 48 – just as a side note lower 48 is what we call all of you guys. But what you’ve gotta understand is that a lot of these guys, they’re seeing just lettuce, for example, that’s three weeks old, it’s four weeks old, it’s well on its way to spoilage, and it gets sold in these communities, and it’s all they have. I mean they don’t have anything else.

So, for them, they like the idea that it’s organic or that it’s non-GMO or that it’s hydroponic, but they really care that it’s fresh and that they know the farmer personally. I mean these are communities of a couple of thousand people, and it’s not uncommon for them to knock on the door and ask for a tour and normally the farmer will give them a tour because he’s known them for 20 years.

I’d say that’s more of the big selling point for the customers in Alaska anyway.

LBT: How many of your containers are out there now?

Perpich: We’ve sold six, so, we’re young. We’re early stage.

Listen to the rest of the podcast to find out what these entrepreneurs’ goals are over the next few years, and for more insights from the conversation.

Indoor Farming Start-Up Plenty Secures $200m In Funding

Indoor Farming Start-Up Plenty Secures $200m In Funding

Posted By: News Deskon: July 19, 2017In: Agriculture, Environment, Food, Industries, Uncategorized

US indoor farming start-up Plenty has obtained $200 million in funding led by the SoftBank Vision Fund as it expands its agriculture model.

Plenty claims to be developing patented technologies to build a ‘new kind of indoor farm’ that uses LED lighting and micro sensor technology to deliver higher quality produce.

The company said the investment will boost its global farm network and support its mission of ‘making fresh produce available and affordable for people everywhere’.

As part of the deal, SoftBank Vision Fund’s managing director Jeffrey Housenbold will join the Plenty board of directors.

SoftBank Group Corp chairman Masayoshi Son said: “By combining technology with optimal agriculture methods, Plenty is working to make ultra-fresh, nutrient-rich food accessible to everyone in an always-local way that minimises wastage from transport.

“We believe that Plenty’s team will remake the current food system to improve people’s quality of life.”

Based in San Francisco, Plenty plans to build its farms near the world’s major population centres to produce GMO and pesticide-free produce while minimising water use.

Plenty CEO and founder Matt Barnard said: “Fruits and vegetables grown conventionally spend days, weeks, and thousands of miles on freeways and in storage, keeping us all from what we crave and deserve — food as irresistible and nutritious as what we used to eat out of our grandparents’ gardens.

“The world is out of land in the places it’s most economical to grow these crops.”

He concluded: “We’re now ready to build out our farm network and serve communities around the globe.

These 5 Technologies Are On The Verge of Massive Breakthroughs

These 5 Technologies Are On The Verge of Massive Breakthroughs

A new report highlights a few promising fields that could explode in the near future.

By Kevin J. Ryan |Staff writer, Inc.@wheresKR

An Aerofarms employee uses a scissor-lift to check the vertically-growing greens within the company's Newark, NJ headquarters.

CREDIT: Ellise Verheyen

Here's a glimpse of what the future will look like.

This week, Scientific American published its annual report on emerging technologies. The list is a compilation of what the publication calls "disruptive solutions" that are "poised to change the world." To qualify, a particular technology must be attracting funding or showing signs of an imminent breakthrough, but must not have reached widespread adoption yet.

Here are a few of the cutting-edge technologies that made the list--and the companies that are already making strides with them.

1. Noninvasive Biopsies

Cancer biopsies, which entail removing tissue suspected of containing cancerous cells, can be painful and complicated. Analyzing the results takes time. Sometimes, the tumor can't be reached at all.

Liquid biopsies could be the solution to all those issues. By analyzing circulating-tumor DNA--a genetic material that travels from tumors into the bloodstream--the technique can detect the presence of cancer and help doctors make decisions about treatment. It can potentially go even further than traditional biopsies, identifying mutations and indicating when more aggressive treatment is necessary. Grail, which spun out from life sciences company Illumina earlier this year, currently has $1 billion in funding from investors including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. The startup is working toward developing blood tests that could detect cancer in its earliest stages.

2. Precision Farming

Farming doesn't have to be an inexact science. Thanks to artificial intelligence, GPS, and analytics software, farmers can now be more precise in managing their crop yields. This makes agriculture a more efficient operation, which is especially critical in parts of the world where resources or climate aren't conducive to growing. Indoor farming startups including Aerofarms, Green Spirit Farms, and Urban Produce all closely analyze their crops using these types of tools to maximize output and flavor. Blue River Technology and others use computer vision to cut down on wasted fertilizer--sometimes by 90 percent.

3. Sustainable Design of Communities

Creating sustainable neighborhoods isn't just be good for the environment--it might be good business, allowing companies and residents to reduce their energy costs. Google spinou Sidewalk Labs is scouting locations for a huge feasibility study that would use one neighborhood to showcase what the city of the future might look like, creating infrastructure for self-driving electric cars and sustainable energy sources like solar. Last year, Denver and Detroit were rumored to be front-runners for the project.

4. Deep Learning For Visual Tasks

Artificial intelligence has become shockingly successful at identifying images across a range of applications. Facebook already can recognize many of the people and objects in your photos and allows you to search for images by describing their contents. Google's image recognition software is the basis for its new platform, called PlaNet, which can in some cases predict the locations where photos were taken based on clues in signage, landmarks, and vegetation. Earlier this year, researchers at Stanford revealed that they'd trained A.I. to correctly identify skin cancer with 90 percent accuracy--higher than the dermatologists it went head to head with.

5. Harvesting Clean Water From Air

What if moisture could be pulled from the air, even in arid climates? Scientific American reports that research teams at University of California-Berkeley and M.I.T. are developing systems aimed at accomplishing just that. The scientists customize crystals called metal-organic frameworks to be extra porous and thus able to collect large amounts of water, which are then deposited into a collector.

An Arizona-based startup called Zero Mass Water harvests water using a different method. According to the publication, the company creates a system that uses solar energy to push air through a moisture-absorbing material. A unit with one solar panel, which runs about $3,700, produces between two and five liters of water per day. The company has performed installations in the southwestern U.S. as well as in Jordan, Dubai, and Mexico. It also recently sent panels to Lebanon to provide water to Syrian refugees.

Could Vertical Farms Save The Planet?

Could Vertical Farms Save The Planet?

With the global population rising at high speed, farmland shrinking, and more people moving to urban areas, the idea of vertical farms in cities has long been a dream. But as Bowery Farming has raised $20m for its “post-organic” vertical farm, bringing its total take to $27.5m, “indoor farming” is turning “from fantasy to reality”, says
Amy Feldman on Forbes.com.

Bowery’s co-founder and chief executive Irving Fain started his career as an investment banker at Citigroup, ran marketing at iHeartMedia and co-founded CrowdTwist, before turning to food.
In 2014 he teamed up with David Golden – who had previously co-founded and run LeapPay, a business loan provider – and Brian Falther, a mechanical engineer in automotive manufacturing. They began looking at how technology might enable better farming.

Bowery relies on computer software, LED lighting and robotics to grow leafy greens without pesticides and with 95% less water than traditional agriculture. With pricing similar to organics, Bowery sells six varieties of leafy greens to Whole Foods and Foragers, two grocery firms. By locating near cities, indoor farms have less impact on the environment and by controlling its environment Bowery can produce its greens 365 days a year. As a result, “the firm can produce 100 times more greens than a traditional outdoor farm occupying the same sized footprint”.

A Brief History of Modern Farming

A Brief History of Modern Farming

While today it’s possible to grow crops indoors, without soil or sunlight — the way we do at Bowery — this wasn’t always the case. In this post we’re going to provide an overview of the evolution from traditional field farming to industrialized agriculture, explain the differences between greenhouse farming and vertical farming, and introduce you to some of the different techniques used in modern farms today.

From Subsistence to “Super Farms”

Around the time of the American Revolution, 90% of the population were farmers. Today, only 3% of the U.S. population is employed on a farm, and 2% of U.S. farms produce 70% of all domestic vegetables.(1) So how did we get here?

The first significant inflection point for the agrarian economy came with the Industrial Revolution in the 1850’s, which brought with it the use of machinery to increase productivity and reduce labor. Farmers began to use fertilizers, often in the form of natural organic material like animal waste and manure, and learned to rotate crops to achieve better soil productivity. The first use of chemical pesticides also coincided with this period.(2)

“Excavator on Mile 52 being pulled by traction-engine, plow side. August 8, 1904” by War Department Office of the Chief of Engineers, Chicago District. Image from the National Archives and Records Administration, CC-PD-Mark, PD-USGov.

Between the 1930’s and the late 1960’s, The Green Revolution accelerated new methods and technologies that increased agricultural production worldwide, including the transition from animal to mechanical power, the increased the use of chemical fertilizers, agro-chemicals and synthetic pesticides, and single cropping practices. The rapid industrialization of agriculture during this time period required farmers to become more efficient to remain competitive. It resulted in small farms, which had historically grown a wide variety of crops, being pushed out by large, corporate farms specializing in large-scale monocultures of single high-yielding crop varieties, like corn, soy, or wheat. These corporate farms were able to produce large quantities of food more efficiently to feed a growing population. Yet, this progress occurred at an environmental cost: the proliferation of synthetic pesticides, widespread soil depletion, and a heavy carbon footprint. As a result, many researchers and companies sought more efficient and environmentally friendly ways to feed a growing and increasingly urban population.

“Spraying pesticides” by John Messina for the EPA, May 1972. Image from the National Archives and Records Administration, PD-US-EPA.

Modern Farming

The idea of growing plants year-round by controlling environmental factors dates back as far as the Roman Empire. Emperor Tiberius Caesar had moveable plant beds built that could grow cucumbers year-round by being brought inside during cold or unfavorable weather. Over time, this evolved into the concept of greenhouses, which were used throughout Europe and Asia as early as the 13th century, and worked by trapping heat from the sun within an enclosed structure that insulated plants from cooler, ambient temperatures. These greenhouses, while innovative at the time, were all relatively low-tech compared to controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) today.

Today, CEA can be defined as “an advanced and intensive form of hydroponically-based agriculture,”(3) which uses technology to create and maintain optimal conditions for plant growth and minimize the use of resources including water, energy, and space. CEA works within an enclosed structure to provide a greater level of control over environmental factors which affect plant growth and quality like light, humidity, temperature, CO2, and nutrient levels.

In the 1970’s, greenhouses in the Netherlands were the first to use computer-assisted environmental control systems, but rising commodity prices quickly made the cost of heating and cooling prohibitive, and many of these were forced to shutter their operations.(4)

“Dr. Ray Wheeler checks on hydroponically grown lettuce in the Biomass Production Chamber at Hangar L in 1992" by NASA, PD-USGov-NASA.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, NASA used CEA to grow crops on a Martian Base prototype research facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, providing evidence that the nutritive value of indoor-grown food crops could be as good or better than field grown crops.(5) And in 1999, Cornell University built an advanced, commercial-scale CEA greenhouse facility in Ithaca, NY, which grew over 1,000 heads of lettuce per day. Since then, and increasingly over the last 5 years, CEA has been adopted as a commercially-viable solution to urban food production, and companies like Bowery have used CEA to build farms closer to the point of consumption that can produce food efficiently for urban populations.

Modern Farming Techniques

While CEA is a broad term, there are actually a number of different approaches that can be used to grow indoors. These techniques differ in how they deliver a plant’s three primary needs: water, nutrients, and light.

Water: Hydroponics vs. aeroponics

“Hanging Gardens of Babylon” by Maarten van Heemskerck, CC-PD-Mark, PD-Art (PD-old-100)

For water, CEA relies on either hydroponics or aeroponics. Hydroponics is defined as the science of growing plants without soil, and has been used throughout history by the Babylonians, the Aztecs, and even the ancient Egyptians, among others. The commercial use of hydroponics spread after WWII (when it was used by the U.S. Air Force to provide fresh food to troops stationed on small, rocky islands in the Pacific), and continues to accelerate with the development of better accompanying technology and automation. Traditional hydroponic methods, which we use at Bowery, grow plants directly in nutrient-rich water.

Used with permission from San Diego Hydroponics

Aeroponics is technically a subset of hydroponics, and works by suspending plant roots in air and misting them with nutrient water. This method can provide a greater level of control over the amount of water that is used throughout the growing process, but may leave plant roots vulnerable to pathogens, if not carefully controlled.

Nutrients: Hydroponics vs. aquaponics

The second main difference in technique concerns the way nutrients are supplied to the plants. Hydroponics use mineral salts that mirror those naturally-occurring in soil, including minerals like calcium, magnesium, and iron. These mineral salts are combined in precise proportions and dissolved in water to provide nutrients directly to a plant’s roots, allowing for a balanced nutrient environment to achieve optimal plant growth.

Used with permission from Ecolife Conservation

Aquaponics, on the other hand, is a closed-loop system that relies on the symbiotic relationship between aquaculture (fish) and agriculture (plants) for fertilization. While fish waste accumulates in the water and provides the nutrients necessary for plant growth, the plants naturally clean the water. It provides a balanced, yet less regimented, environment.

Light: Greenhouses vs. Indoor vertical farms

Greenhouses vs. indoor vertical farms

Any growing environment requires energy to power photosynthesis. The biggest distinction in Controlled Environment Agriculture is in where this energy comes from, since it doesn’t come (entirely) from the sun, as it does in field farming.

Greenhouse basil, CC0 1.0.

Greenhouses often use a combination of natural and artificial lighting. Greenhouses grow crops indoors in a structure with walls and a roof made primarily of transparent material, like glass or polyethylene, in order to make use of naturally occurring sunlight. They use glass to filter out the UV rays, reducing the heat build-up inside the growing environment. Often, they supplement this sunlight with artificial light to counteract the times when the sun’s energy is either less intense or hidden by clouds.

Indoor vertical farms rely solely on artificial lighting. These farms grow crops entirely indoors inside of a warehouse or shipping container. In some of these farms, crops grow along vertical columns, and in others, they grow horizontally in stacked rows like the stories of a skyscraper (as they do at Bowery). One advantage to relying on LED lights, as we do at Bowery, is that they allow us to grow consistently and reliably 365 days of the year, regardless of weather or seasonality. Another advantage is that we can precisely control their spectrum, intensity, and duration, which allows us to adjust many variables including flavor profiles, and make our mustard greens spicier or our arugula more peppery, for example. We do this using BoweryOS, the software-based brains of our farm.

Inside a Bowery Farm

Until about 5–10 years ago, greenhouse production dominated, but in the last few years more indoor vertical farms have emerged, due in large part to falling LED prices. Both greenhouses and indoor vertical farms can be built in and around cities allowing modern farmers to cut thousands of miles out of the supply chain and deliver fresh produce within days rather than weeks of harvest.

The Future Looks Ripe

While urban farming is on the rise, it still comprises less than 20 percent of agricultural production worldwide today according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.(6) Yet, this next frontier of farming boasts some important advantages: it allows farmers to produce more output, use fewer resources, and reduce transportation by locating operations closer to the point of consumption. As the global population continues to rise, people continue to move to and around cities, and resources continue to dwindle, indoor vertical farming is going to continue to grow rapidly in both scale and importance. At Bowery, we’re excited to be at the forefront of this growth and are passionate about realizing the potential of indoor agriculture to grow food for a better future by revolutionizing agriculture.

Keep up-to-date with all the latest from Bowery by signing up for our email updates at boweryfarming.com and following us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’re hiring!

SOURCES:

(1 & 2) Trautmann, Porter and Wagenet (2012): Modern Agriculture: Its Effects on the Environment Source via Cornell University Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP).

(3 & 5) Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: Controlled Environment Agriculture.

(4) Rorabaugh, Patricia A. (2015): Introduction to Hydroponics and Controlled Environment — Chapter 1 via University of Arizon aControlled Environment Agriculture Center.

(6) Royte, Elizabeth (2015): Urban farms now produce 1/5 of the world’s foodvia GreenBiz.

Made in London: GrowUp Urban Farm's Tilapia Fish and Microgreens In Beckton

Made in London: GrowUp Urban Farm's Tilapia Fish and Microgreens In Beckton

Victoria Stewart goes behind the scenes at an aquaponic urban farm in Beckton

View fullsize

Kate Hofman and Tom Webster

• VICTORIA STEWART 
•  
• When I think of city farms in London I think of tiny replicas of country farms - a few animal pens here and there, a few veg boxes, a farm cafe perhaps. What I don’t picture is what I find at GrowUp Urban Farm in Beckton, E6, which is essentially a warehouse divided into two main rooms, one with huge blue circular tanks filled with tilapia fish swimming around inside, and the other with silver shelves stacked on top of each other and brimming with bright green micro coriander, sunflower shoots and baby kale. On a trip there last week it felt as if I’d been jolted into the future.

GrowUp, currently the largest aquaponic farm set up for commercial use, is the brainchild of co-founders Kate Hofman, a former management consultant who now runs the business, and Tom Webster, a former trained biologist who runs the tech side of things. As well as them, there are 11 employees and some university students working alongside.

For the unfamiliar, aquaponics combines aquaculture - farming fish - and hydroponics - cultivating plants in water - where the greens are fed using waste water from the fish, and this example iin Beckton s what Hofman describes as a “fully ethical and sustainable model.”

Setting it up took months of research, “personal sweat” and equity, and outside investment from Centrica’s social impact fund, angel investors, and WRAP, the waste resources and action programme.

Here Hofman talks about why left management consultancy to set up the business, and why it’s important to be flexible when it comes to using technology to run a business like this one.

How many products do you harvest, and what are they?

As well as our tilapia, which are fresh water fish, we grow pea shoots, baby kale, baby watercress, sunflower shoots, custom mixed salads and frilly baby leaf salad. We also do microgreens: micro radish, micro coriander, micro fennel, micro basil, micro rocket and micro mustard.

Who buys your produce?

We sell our greens directly to restaurants in London, indirectly through a distributor called First Choice, to retailers including Whole Foods and online at FarmDrop, and to a couple of catering customers. The majority of the tilapia goes to a Thai restaurant chain called Rosa’s Thai Cafes.

View fullsize

Why did you start the business? Did you always want to work in the food industry?

Tom trained as a biologist and went onto work as an engineering and sustainability consultant. After he got really interested in food production, we were introduced by a friend and I managed to convince him that it was a good idea to set up a business. I have always been really passionate about food and about sustainability, but I used to work as a management consultant for IBM. I really liked my job but I didn’t feel like I was doing much with a purpose so I decided to take a sabbatical to do a masters in environmental technology and business at Imperial College, where I came across urban farming and aquaponics. It was like a big lightbulb moment - I loved the way that the system took the waste from one side and used it to grow something in the other.

Is this a new technique?

It had been around for quite a while but this was in 2011 and there were very few examples of commercial farms. For so long in Asia, people have been flooding rice paddies, putting fish in them and letting the fish fertilise the plants and eat the bugs and then draining the fields. So from a business perspective I was interested in how you take this technology and this concept of growing that’s been around for hundreds of years to solve some of the sustainability challenges that are going to happen in our food system.

View fullsize

Is growing like this the future?

This is part of the future, I think. I do not think that all food is going to be grown like this going forward, nor do I think the future of what we do is huge Skyscrapers growing food on every level. In a book called Hungry City, Carolyn Steel calculated that if you wanted to feed London using vertical skyscraper farms, you’d have to build 200 Shards to produce enough food. So then of course that throws up all sorts of questions like why? How would you find the space? How could you make enough money from producing food to compete with residential or commercial properties? So I don’t think that’s the future of food, but I do think it’s about finding the available resources and space to grow the right food for people and to do that more locally.

When did you first sell your products?

I was first interested in it in 2011, we set the business up in 2013, and we began selling produce about a year ago.

How many products have you sold since you started?

Here we can produce around 20,000kgs a year of all of our greens. To put that in perspective, one wholesaler might sell around 20,000kgs of baby kale every 3 months. So we think that if we can build 9 farms, and each of those farms is 10 times the size of this, we’ll be able to do about 2% of the demand for baby leaf produce. We can produce 4 tons - 4000kg - a year of tilapia here, and in perspective, most commercial farmers would start of upwards of 100 tons. So there are really exciting opportunities for us to expand. This system is also designed just for tilapia, but technically it’s possible to grow other types of fresh water fish too.

What’s the reaction been like?

It’s definitely taken my grandma about 4 years to work out how to describe to people what I do! But anyway I think we get a very positive reception when we tell and show people what we do because it’s really interesting and it’s a little bit zeitgeisty, too - it’s cool how fascinated people are about seeing that you can produce food in this way (as a lot of people have a very idealised idea of how their food is being produced). People have all sorts of questions, including some about the ethical side of farming the fish which we’re always happy to talk about - we have guidelines on how we do that. I think farmed fish offers a really good opportunity to provide a sustainable source of protein, and I think globally we’ve got a growing middle class population who want to eat more protein, and we need to find more sustainable ways of producing it.

How important to you was it to produce something in London?

I’m from London and I’ve lived here all my life, so I’ve always felt that it would be where I wanted to start a business. London has a well deserved reputation as a city that loves food, and whose consumers care about where their food comes from. Starting the business in London has given us access to a fantastic range of customers that we can work with, and allowed us to showcase our business to the world.

What’s it like setting up a business in London?

We’ve had a great level of support from the local borough and GLA (Greater London Authority), but finding the right space for a business like ours is more challenging in London because space is at a premium - there’s no question it’s more expensive! And some of the costs we’re pleased to bear - for example, we’re a London Living Wage Employer - but we see those costs, representing the true price of equitable food production, as part of the challenge of building a resilient food system. If we can make it work in London, we can make it work anywhere!

Which other London producers you admire?

I’m fortunate enough to live near to Spa Terminus and Maltby Street Market in Bermondsey, and every week there are some amazing producers there. I’m a particular fan of Kappacasein - how brilliant to have a local cheesemaker! If I’m out and about I almost always have a bag of Snact Fruit Jerky with me. They make fruit snacks from fruit that would otherwise go to waste and I really admire their ethics - they even have compostable packaging!

How does a typical day pan out for a London urban farmer?

Once I’ve dropped my baby at nursery and walked the dog, I’m into the office on the farm in E6 to catch up with colleagues about farm operations, sales and any other developments that we’re working on. We’re always keen to show new restaurant and retail customers what we do, and give them a chance to taste our fantastic produce, so I might be giving a farm tour or going out to visit a customer. If I’m at the farm at lunchtime then we quite often grab whatever has just been freshly harvested and use that to make up a big mixed salad with whatever everyone has brought from home. Then in the afternoon I might try and grab some time at my desk to catch up on emails or work on a proposal - but I’m equally as likely to be working with my business partner on strategy or talking to a member of the farm team about a process that needs improving.

For more information on GrowUp Urban Farm visit growup.org.uk; Follow them on Twitter and Instagram

Follow Victoria on Twitter @vicstewart and Instagram @victoriastewartpics

Agtech, The New Farming Tool To Boost Food Security

An indoor hydroponic growing system in Singapore. Urban farming is one sub-sector that has seen some ‘new wine’ in the form of indoor farms using fully integrated technology for growing vegetables in controlled environments. Photo: Reuters

Agtech, The New Farming Tool To Boost Food Security

By  PAUL TENG  |  Published  3:00 PM, JULY 05, 2017  |  Updated 3:00 PM, July 05, 2017 

Modern farming depends on technology such as seed, fertiliser, pesticides, water, and machinery. These have formed the basis of the world’s food production systems for staples.

However, it has become increasingly clear to scientists, policymakers and development agencies that physical inputs alone did not guarantee that farmers can make best use of these inputs. Knowledge is required to make farms productive, farming practices efficient, and farm productivity more targeted.

At the same time, information-communication technology (ICT) has also increasingly affected the farming community. ICT is increasingly recognised as the means to capture and share knowledge and in the process, improve the efficiency of using production inputs.

For farming, a major challenge has been how to empower all farmers with the knowledge to use inputs effectively.

Agricultural technology (agtech), together with new digital knowledge capture techniques and new financial technology (fintech) groups, is fast changing farming by creating a new knowledge intensive agriculture. And this has implications for Singapore, which wants to boost the efficiency of farm use and improve its food security.

Smallholder farmers remain the foundation for Asia’s food security. These small farmers were responsible for using the first set of “disruptive innovations” in the 1960s, such as high- yielding crop seeds, fertiliser and pesticides to significantly increase food supplies.

However, the large, disparate smallholder population in Asia is geographically spread out and farmers work in diverse farming situations.

Each farmer in effect practises farming in his own way based on knowledge either newly learnt or inherited. So to get all farmers to equally manage well the use of the technical inputs available to them has been one of the biggest challenges in Asia — until the advent of ICT tools.

A recent report on The Future of Food and Agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) highlighted the urgent task of assuring that the world can meet the 50 per cent increase in demand for food by 2050. So it is all the more important not only to ensure smallholders have access to farming inputs, but also that they know how to use the inputs effectively.

Promoting Use of AGTech in Singapore

A new impetus for knowledge-intensive agriculture is the increase in myriad tools to practise “data-enabled agriculture” — environment sensors, mobile computing, satellites and imaging, drones, wireless communication and even genetics.

The growth of knowledge in digital form, and the increasing capacity of small farmers to access digital information, provide opportunities not possible before to share timely information on farming environments and the required management knowledge.

This democratises the sharing of knowledge. It also has the added attraction of luring millennials and other new entrants into agriculture at a time when almost all countries are faced with the twin problems of an ageing and declining farming population.

This matter is equally important in small city-states like Singapore as in other large agricultural countries.

Two new words, “agtech” and “fintech” have crept into the discourse on modern farming. But are these “old wine in new bottles” or are they truly “new wine in new bottles”?

The growth in knowledge-intensive agriculture offers opportunities for new technologies, new physical inputs and new financial mechanisms to ensure these become socialised into the farming sector.

Agtech collectively means the individual technologies or a combination of technologies related to farm equipment, weather, seed optimisation, fertiliser and crop inputs, irrigation, remote sensing (including drones), farm management, and agricultural big data.

Agtech has gained widespread attention and considerable investment, with one pioneering company, AgFunder, estimating that in 2014 and 2015 alone, investments totalled US$7 billion (S$9.7 billion).

Urban farming is one sub-sector that has seen some “new wine” in the form of indoor farms using fully integrated technology for growing vegetables in controlled environments of artificial light, temperature, carbon dioxide, water and fertiliser.

Korea and Japan together have over 100 indoor high-tech farms. South Korea even has a government agency to provide oversight and promote agtech.

In Singapore, Panasonic’s indoor controlled environment vegetable farm grows about 40 different types of vegetables and has delivered such high-tech vegetables to supermarkets.

Another start-up, Archisen, is prototyping a different kind of indoor controlled environment farm using an Internet of Things approach and eventually aims to connect multiple such farms with cloud technology.

There are other commericial urban vegetable farms, each showing its unique use of engineering technology.

To incentivise investors in modern agtech farms, enablers would include longer or lower-cost space leases, one-stop approvals to farm in urban space, government start-up funds, and more platforms for sourcing private financing.

Singapore can promote more use of modern agtech by showcasing or piloting available agtech in partnership with local or overseas groups such as “AgFunder”.

But ultimately, adoption will depend on the enabling environment as farming enterprises need to show an adequate return on investment over an assured period.

Connecting The Dots

Fintech companies now use new technology to provide financial services for innovations in farming, either bypassing or complementing traditional financial and technology players such as development banks and multinational companies as the main suppliers of physical technologies and knowledge to small farmers.

But it is the synergy of agtech and fintech that is causing great excitement for knowledge-intensive agriculture.

Countries with active financial centres coupled with proper governance such as intellectual property protection for new technology, will find that the changed landscape provides many opportunities to create new avenues of economic growth.

An example is Singapore, which has a “first mover” advantage in urban farming technology, and has already attracted attention from investors from other parts of Asia.

Singapore, with many centres of expertise in ICT, and being home to many financial institutions, has potential to develop into a major agtech-fintech player to generate new technology-based farming applications for small-farmer knowledge-intensive agriculture in both urban and rural situations.

Historically, farming has seen many disruptive innovations, such as hybrid corn in the 1920s, biotech crops in 1996, and now digital agricultural technologies and genome-edited crops and animals in the 2010s.

As experts at an Asian Development Bank workshop last month noted, knowledge-intensive agriculture has the potential to become the latest and most impactful game changer because it “connects the dots” to link technology, knowledge, the farmer and the financier.

The FAO report on the future of food and agriculture also proposed that new investments and new technologies are needed to meet the 50 per cent increase in food demand by 2050, and doing so will require US$ 265 million in investment a year.

It is unlikely that all this investment will be met by governments, pointing further to an important complementary role of fintech companies.

New platforms for connecting technology developers with investors are already starting to make their presence felt in Singapore.

Government support could help in establishing Singapore as a key player in the agtech-fintech space for agriculture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paul Teng is Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He formerly held leadership positions at The WorldFish Centre, The International Rice Research Institute and Monsanto Company. This is adapted from another piece in RSIS Commentary and part of a series on the upcoming World Agricultural Forum (WAF) on July 6-7 organised jointly by RSIS.

Indoor Ag Means Safer Conditions For Farm Workers

Indoor Ag Means Safer Conditions For Farm Workers

Vertical farm CEO says growing greens without pesticides, herbicides and other harmful chemicals one of many pluses of this booming industry

 One of the potential benefits of the booming indoor farming industry is safer working conditions for the people who grow and harvest our food.

“Farm workers will no longer have to work with the risk of pesticide drift,” says Sonia Lo, CEO of FreshBox Farms, the nation’s largest modular vertical farm.

California regulators continue to debate how to best protect farm workers from harmful pesticides and herbicides, but when it comes to food grown indoors, in digitally controlled locations, it’s a moot point.

FreshBox Farms, like other Digital Distributed Agriculture (DDA) operations, uses sustainable growing enclosures, no soil, very little water, a rigorously-tested nutrient mix and LED lighting to produce the freshest, cleanest, tastiest produce possible.

“No pesticides or other harmful chemicals are used, so that means a safer working environment,” says Lo. “Conventional growers try to control and contain the chemicals sprayed on fields, but the fact is, in many cases, those chemical can contaminate groundwater, and air, not to mention expose field workers to harmful substances.”

The leafy greens market in the US is $6 billion to $9 billion per year, but over the next 10 years, industry observers believe that over 50% of traditional growing operations will go indoors and into some form of DDA. As a result, industry watchers are predicting the creation of more than new 100,000 jobs.

"Unlike other high-tech industries, Digital Agriculture offers entry level jobs, with career path prospects, to unskilled labor,” says Lo. “It pays well and is in a pleasant indoor, climate-controlled environment. Anyone who is willing to work hard can get ahead in this industry." 

Vertical Farming: Is The Industry Learning From Its Mistakes?

Vertical Farming: Is The Industry Learning From Its Mistakes?

/AGRITECTURE.COM EXCLUSIVE/

by Chad Sykes

A debate about vertical farming has recently started to find its way into public discussion by many respected people in the industry, such as Joe Swartz from American Hydroponics and Nate Storey, Chairman of Bright Agrotech. This debate hasn’t been lost on journalists either who have started asking the question, what is “the verdict on the value of vertical farming” and “does vertical farming make sense?” I’ve decided it’s time to share my own personal opinions on the subject of vertical farming in an effort to help shape the ongoing debate and maybe help others from making a huge financial mistake.

So, what is the verdict on vertical farming? Well, I honestly think the jury is still out, but there is more than enough evidence to at least suggest what works and what does not. The problem today is that more often than not, the industry is selling a dream and not the honest reality. I’ve been in this industry since the very beginning and watched it evolve, so hopefully sharing my knowledge will prove useful and prevent people from buying into the dream because it can quickly become a nightmare.

THE BIRTH OF VERTICAL FARMING

It was late 2008 when I was first introduced to what has now become widely known as Vertical Farming, or more technically accurate, Building-Integrated-Agriculture. The Company was Angel Eyes Produce, whose CEO Andy Maslin had reached out to me for some help in marketing his Company to investors. At the time I was running a boutique investor and public relations Company taking on unique and interesting clients. Andy was operating out of a small 3,000 square foot warehouse in upstate New York growing a variety of crops indoors under fluorescent light and selling them through his local farmers market. My first visit to his farm was in the winter, with three feet of snow outside his door. I was enthralled, to say the least.

To the best of my knowledge, Andy was the first true pioneer of small scale vertical farming in the U.S. The idea was unheard of at the time and finding willing investors proved to be quite difficult. I couldn’t help Andy raise the money he needed and he eventually fell victim to some people who exploited his efforts. Today, Andy runs 2445 Organics with his family in Massena, New York. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but meeting him changed my life.

VERTICAL FARMING GOES BIG

Fast-forward a couple years to 2010 and everyone is talking about Dickson Despommier’s book The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21stCentury. In the U.S., the big players in vertical farming that I started closely following were TerraSphere, Aerofarms and VertiCrop. These new farms represented a far more complex model than I had seen Andy attempting with Angel Eyes Produce. This new breed of vertical farms tried to go big and commercial with tons of automation and complex systems. For the next three years a competition of sorts broke out and everyone was vying for the title of the “largest vertical farm.” Most of these expensive, highly automated vertical farms would eventually begin to fail and lessons were learned by these early pioneers.

New players that came into the market watched these failures unfold in real time and developed less complicated and less costly vertical farms such as Green Spirit Farms, FarmedHere, Ecopia Farms and Green Sense Farms. This new generation of vertical farms reminded me a lot of Andy’s farm but these farms were being attempted at a much larger scale. 3,000 square feet gave way to 20,000 square feet and now farms were being built with over 10 layers, whereas Andy’s farm only had two or three in most cases. Investors had finally started warming up to the concept and more and more money was becoming available to start-up’s claiming to have the next greatest vertical farming idea. Vertical farming had finally started to gain some traction. It was an exciting time for all of us in the industry.  

JUMPING INTO THE FRAY

In late 2011, I decided I would join the vertical farming movement and I founded Indoor Harvest Corp. The original idea for Indoor Harvest was to combine a vertical farm with a café. The idea was simple, use the vertical farm as a marketing tool and offer fresh produce under a traditional café model that would serve soups, salads and sandwiches. In developing this idea, it became obvious there was more opportunity in the methods and processes of vertical farming than actually running one. So, while everyone else was going for the title of biggest vertical farm, I realized the industry technology was evolving too quickly to jump in as an operator so I turned my focus towards research and development. I started looking at ways to innovate vertical farming and build relationships and research and development partnerships to expand my knowledge base.

Image credit: Indoor Harvest

In 2012, I began conducting research and development with high-pressure aeroponics. I had been inspired by Richard Stoner’s work with Agrihouse and NASA as well as Aerofarms. However, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the existing designs so I began looking at how the method could be improved and better scaled. Those efforts caught the attention of a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab which led to an agreement and the commissioning of a research platform for OpenAg, formerly known as MITCityFarm.  Working on this project I learned something quite valuable, a grower could manipulate the chemical expression of a plant by combining aeroponics, LED lighting and environmental controls. In late 2014, I took that knowledge and began working with Canopy Growth Corporation to test the potential of aeroponics and environmental controls for cannabis production.

In 2013, I was the first U.S. based Company to join the newly formed Association of Vertical Farming. I was there, mingling and sharing ideas with the people that have now gone on to do big things in the industry. Unfortunately, my subsequent involvement in the cannabis industry has caused political issues for me personally in the vertical farming space.

I could probably write an entire book on my work in the vertical farming space if it wasn’t for all the NDA’s I’ve had to sign. I’ve had the pleasure of working with numerous big names in vertical farming, albeit mainly from behind the scenes due to cannabis politics. I’ve been invited to tour several major name vertical farms and asked to provide feedback. Now I want to share some of that feedback publicly in an effort to promote better adoption, dispel some myths and maybe help the discussion currently taking shape.

Image credit: Verticrop

LESSONS NOT BEING LEARNED

Back when I first started, the vertical farming industry was lucky to get a published article once a month. Today, it’s not uncommon to see a dozen articles in just a single week. It’s safe to say that vertical farming has reached a critical mass. Unfortunately, the hype is creating a dangerous bubble which threatens to put the industry back several years. With Silicon Valley money now pouring into vertical farming because of the hype from technologists, everything is changing. Many of the mistakes we made five years ago are still being made today by these newer entrants. In many cases, people are simply reinventing and repackaging failed ideas. This is happening due to a new influx of investors not familiar with the history of the industry and new entrants copying what they have seen others do. Recently, there was an excellent panel hosted at the Aglanta Conferencewhere vertical farming pioneers discussed the challenges facing the industry. 

Here are a few things I believe the industry needs to hear:

• Small Vertical Farms are at best a hobby that pays for itself, at worst it’s a financial nightmare for the operator. With that said, there are certainly some successful small-scale vertical farms in operation today. However, what has made them successful has little to do with their technology and more to do with their geographic location, local market conditions and how they market their products. Generally speaking though, it’s become the exception to the rule. The margins are quite thin in vertical farming at a small scale. It’s simply not a sustainable business if it doesn’t turn a sustainable profit. Vertical farming is no joke and the failure rate is quite high.

• There are far too many LED and Software/Automation companies in the vertical farming industry, please no more. Regardless of what the investment reports say, large scale vertical farms are developing far slower than any of us expected. They are capital intensive, require huge amounts of planning, engineering and developers must deal with complicated zoning and other regulatory hurdles. What’s fueling the ancillary business growth isn’t big vertical farms, but the rapid growth and interest in smaller vertical farms. In other words, the majority of the industry is built upon a weak economic model. This bubble is eventually going to pop. If I’m building a vertical farm and spending millions I want to make sure my LED supplier is going to be around for the next 10-15 years. That narrows it down to just a handful of well-capitalized companies. If I’m building automation, I don’t care about some cute cell phone app, I’m going to develop on a tried and proven controls platform such as Siemens or Rockwell and I’m going to develop a controls strategy from the ground up specifically to my needs.

• No, Vertical Farming is NOT going to solve the looming food crises. Just stop, this is ridiculous nonsense. Amazon didn’t just move to acquire Whole Foods because they want to feed the hungry starving masses. They did it because more affluent buyers are willing to spend more on higher quality produce, not because they are solving world hunger. It is this demand for a higher quality product by those who can afford it that is driving the vertical farming industry today. Maybe in 100 years when we’re all glowing from Fukushima radiation and our crops won’t grow because of climate change, maybe vertical farms will solve a problem. However, chances are more likely humanity will have to completely rethink its diet to survive and vertical farms will ditch leafy greens and microgreens for a hybrid GMO, high-protein cultivar that science has yet to engineer.

• No, Vertical Farming is not more sustainable, at least not yet. We’ve all heard it, vertical farming is better for the environment because it reduces the logistics of farming. While this may be true for a very large, automated, commercial-scale vertical farm, it is nowhere near true for a small scale vertical farm. The carbon foot print of a head of lettuce coming out of a small vertical farm is terribly high. It’s a tough pill to swallow when someone tells you that your small vertical farm is not environmentally friendly, but it’s not. Sorry. Scaling such a model up would not only be economically bad, it would be environmentally bad as well.

• It’s not the “Vertical” in Vertical Farming that is key, it’s the ability to control the environment with precision.  Much of vertical farming is based on the fact that crops are grown in layers. However, the biggest asset of a vertical farm isn’t the layers, it’s the ability to provide a controlled environment. The focus should be on maximizing that aspect, not on how many layers you can stack. Think outside the box. Select crops that can benefit from this control.

• HVAC, it’s the most often overlooked aspect of Vertical Farming.  While many focus on the growing system, lighting or the software that runs a vertical farm, very few people make the right choices when it comes to HVAC. A plant needs airflow to properly transpire. However, too much airflow is bad as well. When I see an indoor farm with oscillating fans and standalone dehumidifiers, I see a farm that wasn’t properly designed. Vertical Farms are not office buildings, they are more like data centers. A properly engineered vertical farm HVAC system is going to be capable of removing humidity and heat via a central plant that would be designed in a manner that allows airflow management across the plant canopy. There’s no point cooling the isles, or empty spaces. I’d also highly recommend investing in airflow modeling to see where potential problems might be.

• What is your ROI after considering additional CAPEX in years 5 and 10? Today’s vertical farms are bigger, but in most cases are less complicated than their earliest large-scale predecessors. In some respects, the industry has come full circle. We’re basically back to where we started and are now talking expensive automation again. The question everyone must ask now is what is my ROI after say just 10 years? LED lights are going to fizzle out, mechanical systems are going to fail and pumps will need to be rebuilt. It would not be crazy to suggest that up to 70% of a vertical farm system will undergo some level of replacement or repair within a 10-year window. Does your vertical farm design allow for ease of maintenance? How does this fit into your cost model? Did you consider this in your business plan? This is where vertical farming is going to see its biggest challenge in the coming years. Vertical Farming will need to prove that the ROI is worth it before more capital is required to be injected into the business to keep it viable. I don’t see this happening for most of the big vertical farms operating today. Most will end up being maintenance nightmares within five years which will drive operating costs up.

Image credit: Indoor Harvest

VERTICAL FARMING 2.0

Now that I’ve probably upset half the folks in the vertical farming community, not all is lost. I believe firmly that vertical farming can and will work. However, we must be honest about the economic results we’ve been seeing and learn from our mistakes. For those who know me well, I was initially the biggest champion of promoting the small vertical farming model. It was the entire core of my business plan at one time. However, after working in this industry for the better part of a decade, I’ve become wise to what works and what doesn’t. I want to see this industry grow and thrive but we need to have a real discussion about the economics of vertical farming. Here are a few things that I believe are going to be important in the Vertical Farming 2.0 movement moving forward:

• Scale and automation are going to be the keys to success. If you’re not planning on spending tens of millions of dollars, you’re not scaled for success. Future successful vertical farms are going to be the ones that dramatically reduce the handling of the product, people and reduce the number of actions required to package and ship. The groups who figure out how to reduce the handling and steps required are going to be the winners. There is not a single vertical farm in operation today that doesn’t require substantial movement of people and product. The good news is there are people figuring this out and I suspect 2018 will be the year we start seeing these newer, more streamlined methods deployed.

• One size does not fit all, geography, local market, and branding matter. The number one question I get asked from aspiring vertical farmers is, how much does it cost and how much will I produce? If you don’t already know the answer, you need to get a master grower on your team and someone that understands marketing. Then come talk to me after you’ve figured your business plan out. Every city is going to have different opportunities. While I can guide you through building a vertical farm, I have no way to know the multitude of business plans that will work for your selected market and location. This is the number one mistake I see new vertical farmers making, not having the people on their team that have the appropriate local experience.

• If you don’t have a master grower, you’re most likely going to fail. While it looks easy, vertical farming is anything but. If you open an automotive repair shop, you need to hire a mechanic. If you open a barber shop, you need to hire a barber. If you start up a vertical farm, you need to hire a master grower. Do not assume you can watch a Youtube video or have an iPhone app help you figure this out. Farming outdoors is not easy, farming indoors is that much harder. Success depends on having the right people. Farming is not something you can franchise or manage from an operating manual or user interface.

• Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, niche food markets and plant research are the future of Vertical Farming. Spending millions of dollars to grow just basic lettuce in a vertical farm is not exactly economically viable. I’m sorry to burst some bubbles but the numbers just aren’t that good. The margins just don’t work in most locations. Not unless you’re in Alaska, or in a geographic region where produce is mostly imported. In those situations, there is an opportunity for vertical farms to support niche markets. The real future of vertical farming I believe is in the ability to produce crops with precision and with consistency. Whether that’s using technology to chemically express cannabis for specific pharmaceutical use, or growing high-quality cultivars for cosmetics or research. Lettuce is boring folks, there’s so much more we can do with vertical farming that isn’t being done. The cannabis industry could surely benefit from vertical farming methods, but legal issues hinder such major infrastructure development in the U.S. today.

• Investors, quit chasing the flashy gimmicks and technologist hype. This is for all investors out there interested in vertical farming. Especially the big ones. Quit fueling the bubble and put your money behind actual scaled farm development. Try and avoid the latest flashy white label Chinese LED light, the most recent version of the Hannibal rack/flood table vertical farm, or the cool cell phone app that does nothing to help move innovation forward. Make sure you are talking to people who have been doing this since the beginning. Get to know the whole community, not just the more visible well-funded and marketed players. There’s a lot of hype out there, so be careful. Anyone saying their numbers are amazing are misleading you somewhere. Ask about their 5 and 10-year plans. If your potential investment hasn’t factored in at least a 30% CAPEX refit after 10 years, they haven’t been doing this long enough to know better. Ultimately it is you, the investors that will drive this industry forward, or cause the bubble to get bigger before it pops.

Disclaimer: Chad Sykes is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Indoor Harvest Corp, a publicly held Company and is a Director and spokesperson for the Medical Cannabis Association of Texas. This article was prepared or accomplished in Mr. Sykes personal capacity. The opinions and views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Indoor Harvest Corp, its Board of Directors, its shareholders, or the Medical Cannabis Association of Texas.

SOURCE AGRITECTURE.COM

At The Innovation Apex of Agriculture

At The Innovation Apex of Agriculture

New crops, automation and big data fueled conversations at the 5th annual Indoor Ag-Con in Las Vegas.

July 27, 2017  |  Patrick Williams

View fullsize

Photo: Patrick Williams; Logo courtesy of Indoor Ag-Con

Between the metallic dinosaur at the trade show’s entrance, vertical gardens exhibiting multicolored lettuce and leafy greens, and booths showing off the latest in lighting technology, the 5th annual Indoor Ag-Con in Las Vegas, May 3-4, provided attendees an all-encompassing tour of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and the technology and innovation that surround it.

Produce Grower was proud to be a sponsor of the event, where sessions focused on everything from securing funding to managing lighting needs to ensuring food safety. To learn more about the keynotes and Produce Grower’s general takeaways from Indoor Ag-Con, listen to our event recap at bit.ly/2tJ0yB4. In these pages, we will look at sessions centered around new crops and the future of automation and big data in CEA.

New Crop Opportunities

From drastic flavor modification to growing crops with major health benefits, the Indoor Ag-Con session “Which crops will move indoors next?” spotlighted new crop opportunities in CEA.

By changing one ingredient in a hydroponic mix, Dr. Deane Falcone, SVP, plant sciences and product development at FreshBox Farms, says he and his colleagues have been able to modify the flavor intensity of arugula to create mild and spicy varieties. “[The spicy variety] is very, very spicy, and the mild is almost completely bland,” he says. “That means we have the opportunity to titrate that and ... make yet a third one.”

Additionally, scientists can adjust the phytonutrient content of specific crops to produce anticancer qualities, Falcone says. Studies over the past 10 to 15 years, for instance, have shown that broccoli possesses anticancer activity through compounds called sulforophanes, he says.

Ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) and purslane are other crops that growers may want to consider adding to their existing offerings, Dr. Richard Fu, president of Agrivolution, discussed in the session. These crops will not only allow growers in the United States to differentiate their product lines and stick out from the crowd, he says, but they carry health benefits as well.

The inositol in ice plant helps reduce insulin resistance for people with prediabetic conditions or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and it contains beta-Carotene and Vitamin K. The Super Omega-3 and alpha-linolenic fatty acids in purslane, meanwhile, can help alleviate allergies. To learn more about ice plant and purslane, read Greenhouse Management’s Q&A with Fu at bit.ly/2uFT6EG

In the fruit realm, Driscoll’s, the largest berry marketer in the world, has recently begun growing blackberries in glasshouses and has seen promising results, says Ian Justus, senior manager, controlled environment production. Justus works in research and development and produces high quality and high yields growing the company’s new Victoria variety under glass.

The Victoria crops grow approximately 13 feet tall, which makes them difficult to harvest on foot but conducive to cart passes in the greenhouse, Justus says. Multiple supplemental lighting sources exist in the glasshouses. “We’ve got high-pressure sodium lights at the top, and we’ve got really intricate LED bars down at the bottom,” Justus says.

View fullsize

Clockwise from left: Dr. Deane Falcone, Dr. Richard Fu, Ian Justus, Alastair Monk, Darryn Keiller, Nate Storey

Photos courtesy of Nicola Kerslake

The future of Big Data and Automation

Many produce growers have some type of automation set up in their greenhouse or vertical farm, and all of them collect data in some way. But how can growers use automation and large data sets to improve their operations, and is there room in CEA for data sharing? These are questions that were addressed in the Indoor Ag-Con session “What impact can big data and automation have on indoor agriculture?”

Operations can track data that measures how fast crops have been growing compared to previous years, and which inputs those crops need at a given point, says Alastair Monk, co-founder and CEO of Motorleaf. Monk says he wants to see a future where every single grower can automatically use intelligent data to control their operations.

A question that came up at multiple points through Indoor Ag-Con and that Monk addressed is “Who owns the data?” He gave the example of a field farmer using a tractor that collects data. In his example, the farmer owns the raw data, but it is then put onto a server, mixed together with data from other farmers. Once the source of the data is no longer identifiable, the data is made accessible to third-party companies. “I think that’s probably the kind of model that indoor agriculture is going to have to follow,” he says.

Currently, automated systems control environments and crop dosing, but companies are beginning to look more at how to improve the productivity, quality and taste of a crop, says Darryn Keiller, CEO of Autogrow. And while much of this information is proprietary, he, too, would like companies to share data to make it “big.”

Keiller equates an improved system, at least in part, with predictive analytics. “Lighting strikes, stormfronts, record temperature drops, solar radiation, reduced cloud cover — all these things effect production practices,” Keiller says. “But what if you could predict those things?”

Rounding out the session was Nate Storey, founder and chairman of Bright Agrotech. He is also the chief science officer at Plenty, which recently acquired Bright Agrotech (Editor’s Note: Read about the acquisition at bit.ly/2sF5fbs). Storey spoke specifically about machine vision, which he explains as the process of using images to glean data such as size, color and changes over time.

In fact, Storey says, machine vision can tell changes over time better than a human can, as well as temperature, nutrient deficiencies, fruit ripeness and environmental conditions. This outlook may not rest easy with every grower, but Storey is confident in it. “Even [with] my eyes, my mind and all of my experience in growing plants, I’m not as sensitive to these issues as we can get with the right set of images and the right analysis,” he says.

TruLeaf Hits Commercial Shelves

ENTREVESTOR: TruLeaf Hits Commercial Shelves

PETER MOREIRA
Published August 1, 2017 - 7:06pm
Last Updated August 1, 2017 - 7:07pm

Bible Hill company strikes deal with Atlantic Superstores

View fullsize

TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture, the ag-tech company planning a chain of indoor farms across the country, announced Monday its locally grown microgreen products are now available in select Atlantic Superstores across the Maritimes.

Appearing under the company’s GoodLeaf Farms brand, these products grown in the company’s farm in Bible Hill are now available in a dozen Superstores spanning the three Maritime provinces.

According to the TruLeaf website, the products include broccoli shoots, kale shoots, daikon radish shoots and pea shoots, baby arugula and baby kale.

TruLeaf is seeking to become a leader in sustainable agriculture through the use of vertical farming, which combines proven hydroponic technology with advancements in LED lighting and reclaimed rainwater to allow year-round production of plants indoors.

Vertical farming is nearly 10 times more efficient than traditional agriculture, uses as much as 90 per cent less water, and takes up less land.

TruLeaf, which closed an $8.5-million financing round last December, has been working with Loblaw, the parent company of Atlantic Superstores, on the development of its farms.

“We know our customers are looking for exceptional produce, grown locally wherever possible, which is why we are such huge supporters of local and regional suppliers,” said Loblaw director of corporate affairs Mark Boudreau said in a statement.

“Having fresh local vegetables year round in the Maritimes would have been impossible a decade ago. We’re excited about today’s launch and proud of our role working with TruLeaf over the past few years to bring this innovative farming technology to our Atlantic Superstore customers.”

The announcement comes as TruLeaf begins construction on its 50,000-square-foot facility in Guelph, Ont. which will produce vegetables for the Toronto market. It will be five times the size of the Bible Hill facility.

The company said last year that its $8.5-million funding round would be used to build a plant and access the massive Toronto market.

The round was led by Mike Durland, the former CEO of Scotiabank’s global banking and markets division, and included funding from Neil Murdoch, former CEO of Connor, Clark & Lunn Capital Markets.

The Chronicle-Herald reported in December that the new facility will include a network of sensors and artificial intelligence to automate the climate controls and feeding systems for the plants.

TruLeaf said GoodLeaf Farms has been embraced by local wholesalers and restaurants, and now the brand is available across the Maritimes in select stores.

“We are thrilled to be bringing a new era of freshness to Atlantic Canadian consumers,” said TruLeaf CEO Gregg Curwin.

“We grow our produce in tightly controlled environments to the very highest standards in the industry. It’s a difference you can truly taste — our products are bursting with flavour and nutrition. And by dramatically reducing the time and energy needed to grow produce, it really is a new way to eat responsibly.”

The GoodLeaf products are available at:

• Barrington Street Superstore, Halifax

• Charlottetown Superstore

• Fredericton Superstore, Smyth Street

• Joseph Howe Superstore, Halifax

• Trinity Superstore, Moncton

• Bayers Lake Superstore, Halifax

•Kennebecasis Valley Market, Rothesay

• Moncton Superstore, Main Street

• Quinpool Superstore, Halifax

•Dartmouth Superstore, Portland Street

•Truro Superstore

• Sydney River Superstore.

Vertical Farming: Can Urban Agriculture Feed a Hungry World?

Vertical Farming: Can Urban Agriculture Feed a Hungry World?

Agricultural researchers believe that building indoor farms in the middle of cities could help solve the world's hunger problem. Experts say that vertical farming could feed up to 10 billion people and make agriculture independent of the weather and the need for land. There's only one snag: The urban farms need huge amounts of energy.

Romses Architects

By Fabian Kretschmer and Malte E. Kollenberg

July 22, 201110:58 AM

One day, Choi Kyu Hong might find himself in a vegetable garden on the 65th floor of a skyscraper. But, so far, his dream of picking fresh vegetables some 200 meters (655 feet) up has only been realized in hundreds of architectural designs.

In real life, the agricultural scientist remains far below such dizzying heights, conducting his work in a nondescript three-story building in the South Korean city of Suwon. The only thing that makes the squat structure stand out is the solar panels on its roof, which provide power for the prototype of a farm Choi is working on. If he and his colleagues succeed, their efforts may change the future of urban farming -- and how the world gets its food.

From the outside, the so-called vertical farm has nothing in common with the luxury high-rises surrounding it. Inside the building, heads of lettuce covering 450 square meters (4,800 square feet) are being painstakingly cultivated. Light and temperature levels are precisely regulated. Meanwhile, in the surrounding city, some 20 million people are hustling among the high-rises and apartment complexes, going about their daily lives.

Every person who steps foot in the Suwon vertical farm must first pass through an "air shower" to keep outside germs and bacteria from influencing the scientific experiment. Other than this oddity, though, the indoor agricultural center closely resembles a traditional rural farm. There are a few more technological bells and whistles (not to mention bright pink lighting) which remind visitors this is no normal farm. But the damp air, with its scent of fresh flowers, recalls that of a greenhouse.

Heads of lettuce are lined up in stacked layers. At the very bottom, small seedlings are thriving while, further up, there are riper plants almost ready to be picked. Unlike in conventional greenhouses, the one in Suwon uses no pesticides between the sowing and harvest periods, and all water is recycled. This makes the facility completely organic. It is also far more productive than a conventional greenhouse.

Choi meticulously checks the room temperature. He carefully checks the wavelengths of the red, white and blue LED lights aimed at the tender plants. Nothing is left to chance when it comes to the laboratory conditions of this young agricultural experiment. The goal is to develop optimal cultivation methods -- and ones that can compete on the open market. Indeed, Korea wants to bring vertical farming to the free market.

Nine Billion People by 2050

Vertical farming is an old idea. Indigenous people in South America have long used vertically layered growing techniques, and the rice terraces of East Asia follow a similar principle. But, now, a rapidly growing global population and increasingly limited resources are making the technique more attractive than ever.

The Green Revolution of the late 1950s boosted agricultural productivity at an astounding rate, allowing for the explosive population growth still seen today. Indeed, since 1950, the Earth's population has nearly tripled, from 2.4 billion to 7 billion, and global demand for food has grown accordingly.

Until now, the agricultural industry could keep up well enough -- otherwise swelling population figures would have leveled off long ago. But scientists warn that agricultural productivity has its limits. What's more, much of the land on which the world's food is grown has become exhausted or no longer usable. Likewise, there is not an endless supply of areas that can be converted to agricultural use.

By 2050, the UN predicts that the global population will surpass 9 billion people. Given current agricultural productivity rates, the Vertical Farm Project estimates that an agricultural area equal in size to roughly half of South America will be needed to feed this larger population.

Vertical farming has the potential to solve this problem. The term "vertical farming" was coined in 1915 by American geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey. Architects and scientists have repeatedly looked into the idea since then, especially toward the end of the 20th century. In 1999, Dickson Despommier, a professor emeritus of environmental health sciences and microbiology at New York's Columbia University seized upon the idea together with his students. After having grown tired of his depressing lectures on the state of the world, his students finally protested and asked Despommier to work with them on a more positive project.

From the initial idea of "rooftop farming," the cultivation of plants on flat roofs, the class developed a high-rise concept. The students calculated that rooftop-based rice growing would be able to feed, at most, 2 percent of Manhattan's population. "If it can't be done using rooftops, why don't we just grow the crops inside the buildings?" Despommier asked himself. "We already know how to cultivate and water plants indoors."

With its many empty high-rise buildings, Manhattan was the perfect location to develop the idea. Despommier's students calculated that a single 30-story vertical farm could feed some 50,000 people. And, theoretically, 160 of these structures could provide all of New York with food year-round, without being at the mercy of cold snaps and dry spells.

The Power Problem

Despite these promising calculations, such high-rise farms still only exist as small-scale models. Critics don't expect this to change anytime soon. Agricultural researcher Stan Cox of the Kansas-based Land Institute sees vertical farming as more of a project for dreamy young architecture students than a practical solution to potential shortages in the global food supply.

The main problem is light -- in particular, the fact that sunlight has to be replaced by LEDs. According to Cox's calculations, if you wanted to replace all of the wheat cultivation in the US for an entire year using vertical farming, you would need eight times the amount of electricity generated by all the power plants in the US over a single year -- and that's just for powering the lighting.

It gets even more difficult if you intend to rely exclusively on renewable energies to supply this power, as Despommier hopes to do. At the moment, renewable energy sources only generate about 2 percent of all power in the US. Accordingly, the sector would have to be expanded 400-fold to create enough energy to illuminate indoor wheat crops for an entire year. Despommier seems to have fallen in love with an idea, Cox says, without considering the difficulties of its actual implementation.

Getting Closer to Reality

Even so, Despommier still believes in his vision of urban agriculture. And recent developments, like the ones in South Korea, might mean his dream is not as remote as critics say. Ten years ago, vertical farming was only an idea. Today, it has developed into a concrete model. About two years ago, the first prototypes were created.

In fact, the concept seems to be working already, at least on a small scale. In the Netherlands, the first foods from a vertical farm are already stocking supermarket shelves. The PlantLab, a 10-year-old company based three floors underground in the southern city of Den Bosch, has cultivated everything from ornamental shrubs and roses to nearly every crop imaginable, including strawberries, beans, cucumbers and corn. "We manage completely without sunlight," says PlantLab's Gertjan Meeuws. "But we still manage to achieve a yield three times the size of an average greenhouse's." What's more, PlantLab uses almost 90 percent less water than a conventional farm.

As a country which has limited land resources but which possesses much of the necessary technology, the Netherlands seems to be an ideal place to develop vertical farming. This is especially true now that its residents are increasingly demanding organic, pesticide-free foods -- and are prepared to pay more for it.

'The Next Agricultural Revolution'

Despommier believes that entire countries will soon be able to use vertical farming to feed their populations. The South Korean government, at least, is interested in exploring the possibility. At the moment, the country is forced to import a large share of its food. Indeed, according to a 2005 OECD report, South Korea places fifth-to-last in a global ranking on food security. Increasing food prices, climate change and the possibility of natural disasters can compound the problem.

These facts are not lost on the researchers in the vertical farming laboratory in Suwon. "We must be prepared to avert a catastrophe," Choi says.

Still, it will be some time before vertical farming is implemented on a commercial scale in South Korea. Choi's colleague Lee Hye Jin thinks that five more years of research are needed. "Only then will our vertical farm be ready for the free market," he says.

Grow Up Here: These Cool Vertical Greenhouses Are Local And Fit Right In Your Home

Grow Up Here: These Cool Vertical Greenhouses Are Local And Fit Right In Your Home

The future of growing technology in Northern Ontario is here

View fullsize

Greenhouses Canada designs, builds, sells and grows produce with game changing vertical aeroponic equipment. If you have as little as 20 square feet (sq ft) to spare, Greenhouses Canada can help you create a vertical growing space that will grow crops even in the middle of winter. (Facebook/Greenhouses Canada)

By Candice Morel

The desire to purchase locally grown produce is something many residents of Northern Ontario share. Unfortunately, local produce is scarce during the northern winter and many are forced to purchase imported fruits and vegetables.

As a community, we deserve to know where our food comes from and how far it has traveled. The less your food travels from farm to table, the more nutrient content it maintains, making local growing the obvious solution for nutrient-dense fresh produce. 

Greenhouses Canada aims to address this issue by making local crops available year-round in Northern Ontario, even in your own home. 

This local company combines energy-efficient building technology with a passion for food security to revolutionize how communities access fresh food year-round in Northern Ontario. 

They design, build, sell and grow produce with game changing vertical aeroponic equipment. If you have as little as 20 square feet (sq ft) to spare, Greenhouses Canada can help you create a vertical growing space that will grow crops even in the middle of winter.

Aeroponic vertical growing techniques include the most innovative indoor agriculture equipment on the market. Plants are placed in a vertical panel surface while their roots hang in the air. They are then misted with nutrient rich water directly on the root area of the plant allowing crops to grow significantly faster than traditional growing methods while using less water.

Greenhouses Canada’s aeroponic growing equipment can grow anything from leafy green vegetables to strawberries and flowers. With more produce being tested daily, the possibilities of this technology are endless. The system will also produce high crop yield with little to no farming experience. 

After years of research and development, Greenhouses Canada has created the proper recipe for year-round produce growing in all climates. The company will provide training on the growing equipment to those choosing to get started with vertical farming. No matter the size of your project or amount of experience, Greenhouses Canada create an indoor farm that will allow the public to directly contribute to food sustainability and security in Northern Ontario. 

For those who prefer not to grow their own crops, but wish to support locally and ecologically grown produce, there is The Innovation Center. The Innovation Center is a commercial-sized greenhouse that will produce approximately 20,000 plants a week available for sale locally. 

The centre is currently under construction in Espanola and is expected to be completed by late fall. At any given time, there will be approximately 120,000 plants growing at various stages in all seasons. 

The crops produced by The Innovation Center will be available for sale in various food markets in Northern Ontario, including both big and small grocery stores. When you see the Greenhouses Canada logo, you can trust the produce was grown ethically, locally, and transported responsibly and directly after harvest. 

You can also keep your eyes out for The Greenhouses Canada Grow Truck, which will be arriving shortly in Sudbury. This truck will include 15 fully functioning aeroponic panels that are growing food fresh daily for consumption. The truck is 26 feet long, wheelchair accessible and will produce 4,875 plants per month.

If you want a taste of Greenhouses Canada, head out to Frubar’s new location and try a wheatgrass shot, or keep an eye out for the Greenhouses Canada logo at Eat Local, or in The Wellness Boxes.
 
For more information on Greenhouses Canada visit the website and follow us on Facebook for more updates.

Morel is a public relations professional passionate about sustainable solutions and food security in the North. She is currently the marketing and communications director at Greenhouses Canada. 

With Big Names Behind It, Plenty Aims To Rule the Vertical Farming Market

With Big Names Behind It, Plenty Aims To Rule the Vertical Farming Market

Jeff Bezos and others invest $200 million in vertical farming startup Plenty

By Allen Weiner  |  July 25, 2017

A $200 million investment in indoor farming startup Plenty has caught the attention of venture capitalists and those who follow the emerging world of tech-driven, commercial indoor farming. What separates the San Francisco-based agtech company from other indoor farming manufacturers is its claim to be able to grow everything except for tree fruit (lemons, oranges, etc…) and root vegetables. The vast majority of competitors focus solely on greens, herbs, strawberries and the occasional tomato.

Perhaps of even greater significant than its crop yield are the profiles of Plenty’s new investors. The high profile roster for this latest round include Softbank CEO, Masayoshi Son, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Attached to each new investor comes an opportunity. For example, Son could bring Plenty to Japan and the rest of Asia. Schmidt’s VC firm Innovation Endeavors has CropX in its portfolio which boasts an adjacent technology that offers adaptive crop irrigation.

Bezos, on the other hand, stands out because of Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods. The intersection of Plenty with bricks and mortar stores, home delivery of groceries, restaurant delivery and meal kits is a near harmonic convergence. Controlling a prime part of the value chain that goes from farm to table or farm to home puts Amazon in a prime position to level its competitors in a number of markets.

The implementations of Plenty with Whole Foods run from the obvious to the imaginative. It’s easy to see Amazon being able to offer premium produce directly to customers via home delivery, but it also could use Plenty to draw more people into its retail stores. Taking a page from Infarm, which has its indoor farm in a Berlin supermarket, Whole Foods adding sleek vertical farms to its stores would be a lure to its clientele—a predominately upscale  group prone to loving shiny, new objects. Not only would shoppers take notice of this high-touch addition, the farms would have the practical objective of selling fresh goods to fussy shoppers.

Whole Foods’ profile perfectly fits this scenario. In past years, innovation was the company’s strong suit. The Austin-based chain was among the first premium supermarkets to feature in-store, full-service restaurants as well as bars featuring local brews on tap. Noted for working closely with local farmers, it would make sense for Whole Foods to select local organic growers to take ownership of and maintain the Plenty-built vertical farms.

Whole Foods and Amazon could make for an exciting team in advancing the commercial aspects of Plenty. With Softbank’s Son in the mix, Japan and Asia are a solid target for expansion, but Europe is a far larger and more immediate major opportunity. One sign of that Europe is a hot agtech market is seen via Germany’s darling, Infarm. Infarm’s successful implementation in Berlin also has caught the attention of investors and partners. Now working with German grocery chain, EDEKA, Infarm has recently closed a four million Euro round led by Berlin’s Cherry Ventures.

Showing his astute understanding of the market for its vertical farming technology, Infarm co-founder Osnat Michael outlines how his company’s growth has defined the future of indoor farming in Europe and beyond.

“When we started out, we were looked at as ‘idealistic dreamers’. In part, this might have been because we were self-taught and not many believed that we had the necessary expertise needed to invent a new agricultural solution,” Michaeli told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

“The challenge [now] is in finding the right partners. Our initial focus is on supermarket chains, online food retailers, wholesalers, hotels, and other food-related businesses, for whom the superior quality and range of produce — with no fluctuation in costs — makes Infarm an attractive partner. In return, we can reintroduce the joy of growing to the urban population”.

Image credit: Flickr user Euro Slice under creative commons license