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World Vegetable Map 2018: More Than Just a Local Affair by Rabobank
World Vegetable Map 2018: More Than Just a Local Affair by Rabobank
FEBRUARY 1, 2018 URBAN AG NEWS
The 2018 World Vegetable Map shows essential vegetable trade flows and highlights some key global trends in the sector, such as the growing importance of production in greenhouses and vertical farms, as well as the popularity of organic vegetables.
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Map summary: more than just a local affair
The global vegetable market is still predominantly a local market. Only 5% of the vegetables grown are traded internationally. But that share is increasing. Easy market access is vital for export-focused vegetable-producing countries like Mexico, Spain, and the Netherlands. Over the last decade, Mexico has further expanded its prominent position on the North American market, and internal EU trade has continued to grow.
Market for fresh (prepared) vegetables up, demand for canned vegetables down
An estimated 70% of all vegetables grown in the world are sold as whole fresh vegetables. This market is still on the increase, mainly outside of the US and the EU. Processing of vegetables (freezing, preserving, and drying) is a good way to prevent wastage, but global consumption of preserved (canned) vegetables has decreased over the last decade. At the same time, demand for frozen vegetables has increased by an average of 1% per year. Demand trends seem most favourable for vegetables that are convenient to eat and prepare and/or do well on (social) media because of considered health effects or their visual appeal. Examples are all kinds of (prepared) salads as well as sweet potatoes. EU imports of sweet potatoes (mainly from the US) have tripled in just four years’ time.
Organic vegetables most popular in wealthy nations
Organic foods are gaining market share around the world. The share of organic fruit & vegetable sales (in total fresh fruit & vegetable sales) has already passed 10% in wealthy countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Denmark (see Figure 1). In the US, this share is 9% and quickly growing. Income is not the only determinant for organic vegetable consumption. In the Netherlands, where the average income per capita is similar to that of Sweden and Austria, the market share of organic vegetables is only 5%. The reasons behind this are not clear, but it is likely related to supermarkets’ decisions on the category, price, availability, and quality of conventional vegetables, as well as cultural factors.
Sources: UN-Comtrade, Eurostat 2017
Figure 1: Share of organic fresh fruit and vegetable sales vs. income, 2016
Free trade agreements vital
As most fresh vegetables are highly perishable, easy market access is essential. In Latin America and Africa, vegetables are mainly sold regionally. Growing circumstances (climate, water availability), production costs, exchange rates, and trade agreements can trigger vegetable trade flows. Distortions in NAFTA or EU trade agreements (such as Brexit) will negatively affect vegetable trade. In the last decade, Mexico has further extended its very prominent position as North America’s vegetable garden. Spain and the Netherlands are key vegetable exporters within the EU (see Figure 2). Morocco has emerged as an up-and-coming vegetable supplier for the European market.
Figure 2: Intra-EU trade
Source: UN-Comtrade, Eurostat 2017
Up-and-coming import markets
A significant change in the world of vegetables is the rise of new vegetable-importing nations. Vegetable imports used to be concentrated in North America, western Europe and Japan. But gradually, countries like India, China, and the United Arab Emirates have upped their vegetable imports. Russia has also shown an increase in trade, despite the 2014 import sanctions for vegetables from the EU, the US, and a number of other countries. Currently, Belarus, Morocco, China, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are important vegetable suppliers to Russia.
The rise of controlled production in greenhouses and vertical farms
Globally there is a growing need for vegetables that are available year-round, produced in a safe and resource-efficient manner, and are of a consistently high quality. Consequently, vegetable production in greenhouses and vertical farms is rising. The area of greenhouses is estimated at 500,000 hectares, including roughly 40,000 hectares of glasshouses. Recently, we have seen vertical farms popping up in various places around the world, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere close to large consumer concentrations.
Vertical farming entails growing crops (often leafy vegetables) in a controlled environment using artificial lighting. As investments and electricity costs are relatively high, it is (still) challenging to run an economically viable vertical farming business. That said, discerning customers are willing to pay a premium for locally grown vegetables grown in a contained environment.
For more: https://research.rabobank.com/far/en/sectors/regional-food-agri/world_vegetable_map_2018.html
‘Amazon’ Has Put The Food Retail Market On Notice, Is This The Beginning Of A Trend?
‘Amazon’ Has Put The Food Retail Market On Notice, Is This The Beginning Of A Trend?
2/1/2018
Prepared by: Gregory Smith | ColdPICK / Chill Produce
Amazon is responding to a market trend; Social Media is creating a new market paradigm. The Boomers through the Millennials have gone from reacting to ads in newspapers delivered daily, to news flashes and tweets delivered on a second to second basis.
Amazon acquired ‘Whole Foods’ and will create an online provider of food and services. Whole Foods, as a result, of the Amazon acquisition will create a new age of grocery shopping characterized by an ‘on-line’ scheduled pick-up and delivery.
This will change, fresh produce supply dramatically. The Grower / Shipper / Marketing Company needs to recalculate the road ahead to ‘supply the new end user’.
In the future this will occur; less at the retail store and more directly to the individual buyer; through purchasing via Amazon and/or the National Supermarket / Big Box retailer’s offering ‘On-Line’ programs for pick up and home delivery.
The Effect on the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grower / Packer / Shipper and Marketing Company;
1. Packaging will change to deliver fruit and vegetable in “family style” units.
a. Package weights may increase.
b. Designs need to hold up to the material handling associated with ‘mail order’ deliveries;
i. Nesting feature to accommodate automation through the delivery process.
ii. Venting that will provide ‘freshness’.
iii. An insulated ‘master shipper’ and ‘pallet system’ to accommodate multiple products.
2. Field Pick and Packing will be replaced by Line Packing to accommodate
“Family Style” packaging units.
3. Methods of Post-Harvest Pre-Cooling will need to change to accommodate Line Packing.
a. A packaging change is not an easy step for a grower/ packer/shipper and it should be noted that the material handling in the existing packing- houses will not support the ‘new’ direction of the market.
4. Change is a Positive Step. The Fruit and Vegetable Grower / Packer Shipper / Marketing Company has not changed material handling procedures in decades; dating back from wood boxes to corrugated. Pick and Pack at the grow site will be adversely affected by the different packaging required to serve the new market direction.
What needs to happen;
5. Automate Material Handling in the Cold Chain to accommodate Line Packing versus Field Packing;
i. Pre-Cool individual family oriented cartons, not pallets – this will significantly Reduce Dwell Time
1. Energy Cost Reduction
2. Improved Quality – Shelf Life
3. Improved Productivity
ii. Automation will Eliminate LABOR
iii. Cost of Automation; OFFSET by Energy and Labor Reduction 2:1
iv. Package design needs to accommodate automated material handling and a change from ‘stacking tabs to nesting’
1. NESTING design adds an extra layer of trays per pallet level – Increasing Pallet Revenue – Decrease Shipping Cost resulting in (19th truckload is free).
‘Vertical / Greenhouse’ Urban Grow Sites
“Urban Grow Sites” will locate near defined Market Destinations;
a. The “Economy of Scale” associated with ‘Packing House Throughput’ will be modified to suit the new Fresh Market Paradigm.
i. Each produce unit (head of leaf lettuce, sprout, berry) has a per acre measurement.
ii. Each of these measurements can be calculated into a truckload of production.
1. Time, energy, labor, depreciation, material handling, break bulk, weight, et.al. is associated with the Truck Load Cost.
b. The building of ‘Urban Farms’ to serve fresh produce to the differentiated end user markets is characterized by a single ‘Urban Farm’ unit that will increase production from 7% to 20% / acre of production grown on a conventional farm*Bright Agrotech
i. The cost of the ‘Urban Farm’ acre compared to the conventional cost per acre can be calculated and consideration can be given to partnerships to provide fresh produce to a ‘Client’ who grows and packs for a defined market end use.
ii. Defined Client;
1. Retailer (Big Box, National Supermarket Brand, Independent) for a defined geographic area.
2. Third party supplier; Sysco
3. Defined End User; University and Corporate Campuses.
4. Recreation Areas – Resorts – Destination Sites
The new Fresh Market Paradigm will promote the growth of the VERTICAL and GREENHOUSE grower. This growth will not be in competition with conventional fruit and vegetable farming. It will be in partnership. A partnership that will be forged by start-ups that promote the new Fresh Paradigm.
i. Instacart (www.instacart.com)
ii. Grocerkey (www.GrocerKey.com)
iii. Deliv (www.deliv.co)
iv. 84-51 (www.8451.com)
v. Boxed (www.boxed.com)
CHILL PRODUCE - CPC 'Skid Mounted' Small Footprint Vacuum Cooler
Indoor Ag Isn’t Here to Replace Traditional Farms — it’s About More Than That
Vertical farming has been getting a lot of attention lately. It is being called everything from the “future of agriculture,” to the next driver of ag investment, to the solution to a warming planet. It’s almost as if it’s going to solve all of our future farming needs.
Image courtesy of NutraPonics
Indoor Ag Isn’t Here to Replace Traditional Farms — it’s About More Than That
By Allison Kopf, Agrilyst Published: January 30, 2018
Vertical farming has been getting a lot of attention lately. It is being called everything from the “future of agriculture,” to the next driver of ag investment, to the solution to a warming planet. It’s almost as if it’s going to solve all of our future farming needs.
But that’s not the truth.
Vertical farming, and indoor farming more generally, isn’t the be-all and end-all solution to everything facing the industry. It’s true that it can be capital intensive, rent dependent, and not suitable for all types of crops. But indoor farming is about more than that. It is a component of an agricultural system that’s becoming more innovative and more technology-focused every day.
At its most basic level, agriculture is a system that needs to feed a lot of people very efficiently. Right now, we have a pretty efficient system, if you look at just calories produced.
However, not all calories are equal. A large portion of corn is grown to create biofuels, we see massive challenges with food waste, and inaccessibility leads to hunger around the world. So we need to think about where we can increase efficiencies throughout the food system. Can we start relying less and less on water and land in the production of our food? Second, we need our food to be healthier, safer, and all-around better for the consumer. We know that we can grow things that are calorie-intensive, but can we also make sure they are good for us? What’s more, can we grow things in a more food-safe and secure way?
For example, can we grow lettuce in a way such as we don’t have to worry about listeria and E. coli contamination? Can we become less dependent on fertilizers? Can we do things in a more climate-independent way? Can we take a lot of the risk out of the operating side, that conventional farmers are subject to, in order to focus less on seasonality and unpredictability and more on producing healthy, tasty food at scale?
Part of the solution
This is where indoor agriculture and vertical farming can play a really interesting role in the system.
These technologies are never going to entirely replace traditional farms, but there are certain crops that grow really, really well indoors and are well-suited to these growing methods. These are things that have shorter growth cycles and are highly perishable, so you can grow closer to the point of consumption and cut out the inefficiencies on the logistics and delivery side. I’m talking about crops like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, traditionally grown in greenhouses, and lettuces, herbs, microgreens, and berries, which are being grown more and more in vertical applications.
It’s true we’re relatively limited in terms of what can be produced indoors right now, but the implications even of just these few crops could be significant. Moving to indoor production for the crops I mentioned would free up hundreds of thousands of acres of land for crops that do better outdoors, such as wheat and other cereals, while simultaneously saving water and other resources for those products. We just need to convince more farmers of the value of these technologies.
We know this will work because we’ve already seen it happen. With tomatoes.
A question of efficiency
Two things that farmers are focused on are profitability and efficiency.
If you look at tomatoes, 20 to 30 years ago almost all production was done via soil farming. But then, by the turn of the century, attitudes started to change and almost overnight we started to see a lot of new greenhouse producers start offering tomatoes, and it just took off. Today, 37 percent of all fresh tomatoes sold in U.S. retail stores are now hothouse (or greenhouse) production, up from almost zero in the early 1990s.
What happened? Farmers noticed that indoor tomato production was simply more efficient than outdoor and made the switch. Need proof? According to the USDA, the average yield of conventionally grown tomatoes in 2016 was 1.85 pounds per square foot. Greenhouse hydroponic tomato growers, on the other hand, reported an average yield of 10.59 pounds per square foot. Similarly, the average yield of the conventionally grown head, leaf, and romaine lettuce is 0.69 pounds per square foot, compared with 8.71 pounds per square foot for leafy greens grown in a greenhouse.
Almost everything in our agricultural system is about efficiency, and indoor farming is nothing more than a tool in the farmer’s toolbox that will help them in their search for new efficiencies.
Looking ahead
The population is becoming more urbanized and we’re going to have a lot more mouths to feed over the next few decades; that much we know for sure. The indoor farming industry has been predominantly dominated by greenhouse crop production in the past but now, due to decreases in technology costs and an increase in local demand for food, we’re seeing an increase in alternate growing systems, particularly fully enclosed vertical systems. With that in mind, I expect to see a lot of crop production where efficiency gains can be had — such as herbs, lettuces, and berries — start to switch to indoor production in the near term.
But I really think that vertical farming, and indoor farming in general, are simply going to be tools that help farmers do more with less. This isn’t the first step into some sort of dystopian society where all of our food is grown in laboratories. It’s a new and exciting component to the food system that will help the industry scale for the future.
Allison Kopf is the Founder and CEO of Agrilyst, an intelligence platform for indoor farms and winner of Techcrunch Disrupt 2015.
Living Greens Farm is Hooked on Aeroponics
Living Greens Farm is Hooked on Aeroponics
The Faribault company produces lettuce year-round, 21 days from seed to salad.
JANUARY 23, 2018
KATE LERETTE
What do popcorn and lettuce have in common? Nothing, really. It’s how Dana Anderson describes how produce is grown at Living Greens Farm: “It’s like pushing the popcorn button on the microwave,” he says.
Based in Faribault, Living Greens Farm is one of the largest indoor farms in the world, according to Anderson, who is the founder, president, and chairman. The company uses a computer system to control elements such as light, temperature, humidity, and CO2, combined with aeroponics—a method of growing plants by suspending their roots in the air—to grow lettuce, herbs, and microgreens. Rather than using soil, plants are sprayed with a nutrient-rich solution.
“Aeroponics is the fastest way to grow plants,” says Anderson. “Harvest is less than 21 days for a head of lettuce. It’s about two times faster than traditional farming.”
While Living Greens Farm didn’t invent aeroponics, it did develop its own vertical growing and traversing misting systems. The patented systems use 200 times less land and 95 percent less water than a traditional farm, says Anderson, which is huge, given that “70 percent of the world’s fresh water is used for agriculture.”
Anderson launched Living Greens Farm in 2012 after working out of his garage for three years. He and his team raised $8 million from friends and family to help get the company off the ground.
In October, Living Greens Farm completed its first expansion, increasing growing space from 5,000 square feet to 21,000. With the additional space, the company added 32 growing units to its existing 10, increasing its production to 1 million heads of lettuce per year.
Living Greens still has plenty of room to grow; right now it’s using only about 35 percent of its space. Once the company reaches max capacity, it will have 60,000 square feet of growing space. “When all is said and done,” says Anderson, “we will be able to produce a head of lettuce for every person in the entire MSP metroplex.”
The company currently sells greens at Lunds & Byerlys, a handful of Cub Foods and Hy-Vee stores, Fresh Thyme and other major co-ops. A few stores in Iowa will begin carrying its products this year. In addition to growing its grocery-store base, Living Greens Farm is working on adding accounts with food services at local colleges and corporate offices. Anderson also is exploring licensing opportunities worldwide and expanding its operations in other markets.
“There are hundreds of people who do this type of farming as a hobby, but in terms of large commercial companies, we only have three or four major [U.S.] competitors,” says Anderson. “What makes us different is our patented systems and our impact on the economy; we keep more dollars in the state.”
Italy: Innovative Systems to Increase Productivity
"The rise and fall system makes it possible to cultivate 12 plants per square metre. We set up a greenhouse with a hydroponic strawberry crop and LED lights, but the system could also be applied to other crops," explains Cesare Ghezzi.
Italy: Innovative Systems to Increase Productivity
At Orticoltura tecnica in campo (24th-26th January 2018), Idromeccanica Lucchini presented two innovative protected crop cultivation systems. The purpose is to increase productivity per surface unit.
"The rise and fall system makes it possible to cultivate 12 plants per square metre. We set up a greenhouse with a hydroponic strawberry crop and LED lights, but the system could also be applied to other crops," explains Cesare Ghezzi.
Visitors were also interested in the intensive hydroponic vertical crop. Idromeccanica Lucchini is the distributor of an innovative system patented in the UK "Yields are 20 times those of traditional crops," adds Mattia Battistello.
There are cultivation columns containing inert material. The system automatically releases water according to temperature and humidity conditions. Nothing is wasted as everything recirculates. Operators only need to top up water if it drops below the limit.
"The system can be used in cold greenhouses too, but it works better if they are heated. Thanks to vertical cultivation, harvesting is easier and yields are higher."
"A mulching film is placed on the ground to prevent agents from climbing up. Of course the produce harvested is extremely clean."
Contacts:
Idromeccanica Lucchini S.p.a.
Via Cavriana 4B
46040 Guidizzolo (MN)
Tel.: (+39) 0376 818433
Fax: (+39) 0376 819498
Email: info@lucchiniidromeccanica.it
Web: www.lucchiniidromeccanica.it
Publication date: 1/29/2018
Ecobain Gardens Announces New Name
Ecobain Gardens Announces New Name
Saskatoon, SK, January 8, 2018
Ecobain Gardens, a major producer of natural herbs from its vertical hydroponic urban farm in Saskatoon, SK, has announced a name change to better reflect its business.
In the making of the announcement, Brian Bain, Cofounder and CEO said, “we have rebranded to become “Ecobain Naturals.” Bain continued, “Our new name better describes what we do, selling live natural, tasty and aromatic herbs to consumers through more than 450 retail locations in western Canada. These include Sobeys/Safeway & Federated Co-op locations.”
The Ecobain Natural herbs are sold in live potted, living clamshell, and bare root forms in bags to allow retailers a unique natural aromatic herb product catered to their specific demographics. Bain said, “Selling live natural herbs grown in Canada enables us to supply a fresher, more nutritional product. As well, this has the advantage of a longer shelf-life for retailers, who now do not have to rely on imported products to stock their retail shelves.
Bain continued, “Our technologically-advanced hydroponic buildings use 98% less water, which is good for the environment, and our LED lighting allows us to offer the most aromatic, tasty live herbs to the consumers, 365 days per year.”
Presently, Ecobain Naturals grows four herbs for their live herb market, including basil, mint, dill, and chives that are available in nine differing packages. Brian Bain said, “Since our business began in 2014, we have found our nine differing SKU packages including, four potted herbs, three root-attached smaller herb bags, and the larger clamshell basil are the most consistent sellers in the market.
In concluding the announcement on the rebranding to Ecobain Naturals, Brian Bain said, “Our goal is to continue to grow our business by supplying the best live natural and aromatic herbs to the consumer market while providing a very cost competitive product for retailers. Our new name, EcoBain Naturals reflects what we offer for the future.”
Ecobain Natural produces 80,000 units of live herb products each month from its 6,000-square foot facility located in northern Saskatoon. It is the hydroponic system that accommodates this, and like its vertical hydroponic buildings, with Ecobain Naturals, the only way for the business is “up.”
For more information on EcoBain Naturals, please go to the company’s website at
www.ecobainnaturals.ca or check them out on Twitter (@ecobainnaturals), Instagram and Facebook.
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Celebrating a Year of Tremendous Accomplishment!
January 25, 2018
Celebrating a Year of Tremendous Accomplishment!
This past year has been powerful in so many ways for AeroFarms. Our team has been hard at work growing, serving the community, and building out our new global headquarters – the world’s largest indoor vertical farm. We have also been expanding our organization to bring our mission of building and operating responsible farms in major cities all over the world to life. We are so proud of our team’s accomplishments and look forward to an even bolder and brighter 2018. We would like to thank all of you for your ongoing support. We will have even more milestones to celebrate in 2018, and we can’t wait to share what’s next!
AeroFarms on the Road
Over the past year, our team has traveled around the world sharing our story. Here are just a handful of the events our skilled team members presented at in 2017.
A Startup Is About To Build 300 Vertical Farms In China, Thanks In Part To Jeff Bezos
A Startup Is About To Build 300 Vertical Farms In China, Thanks In Part To Jeff Bezos
A Silicon Valley vertical farming startup sees a future in China. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine)
WRITTEN BY Chase Purdy
January 26, 2018
A Silicon Valley agriculture startup is preparing to build 300 vertical farms across China, propelled by investments from funds created by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos and Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
By entering the Chinese market, the startup, Plenty, hopes to tap into the country’s growing demand for organic foods. Chinese citizens have become all too familiar with food safety scandals in recent years. Perhaps the most dramatic was in 2008 when six babies perished and at least 54,000 were made sick when tainted baby formula created a kidney disease outbreak. Now that the country is experiencing a swelling middle class with more buying power, more people are willing to spend a premium to purchase organic foods, which are perceived as safer to eat (something that isn’t always true).
Plenty plans to build and fill warehouses with 20-foot-tall, plant-growing towers that sparkle with LED lights. Herbs, kale, mustard greens, and more will grow horizontally from the poles, fed by water disseminated from the top of the structures via gravity—and won’t need soil or pesticides. Plenty can’t yet grow root vegetables or fruits this way, so it’s focusing its attention next on strawberries and cucumbers.
The company is able to make the move into China in part because of a massive $200 million investment round led by the Japanese telecom company SoftBank Group in July 2017, and which included money from Bezos Expeditions and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors.
Plenty’s business proposition is these sorts of agricultural operations can help an increasingly urbanized global population cut back on amount of water and land used in a conventional farming. Because they can be built in cities, the vertical farms can reduce and even eliminate the financial and environmental costs of transporting food long distances. Plenty is building one such farm in spring 2018 outside Seattle, Washington. It’s expected to produce about 4.5 million pounds of greens per year, enough to feed more than 183,000 people.
The type of operation Plenty wants to bring to China could fit in well with steps the government there is taking to revamp how it feeds its people. Earlier this month (Jan. 16) at a meeting about creating green zones for growing food in major cities, Chinese agricultural minister Han Changfu said in a statement (in Chinese) that he wants to change the way China approaches agriculture. “It is necessary to speed up the transformation of agriculture from yield-oriented to quality-oriented, raise the overall quality of agricultural products, promote the transformation and upgrading of agriculture,” he said in the statement.
Read this next: You next head of lettuce, grown by a robot
10 Key Learnings From Indoor Ag-Con Asia
10 Key Learnings From Indoor Ag-Con Asia
JANUARY 24, 2018 URBAN AG NEWS
By Jacob Eisenberg, Editor of Agri-Futures
Marina Bay Sands in Singapore — venue for Indoor Ag-Con Asia
This year’s Indoor Ag-Con Asia, hosted in Singapore, was filled with idea’s, innovators and enthusiasts alike — all eager to hear new promises and perils of indoor farms and vertical farming from around the world. For a fairly nascent industry, there was a strange aura that made it difficult to separate the inspiring success stories and potential from the soul-crushing, science-based reality this sector faces as it continues to grow. While financial and operational challenges are clear, there were also a number of interesting patterns throughout the two-day event — all likely to shape the industry in 2018 and beyond.
1. There is no silver bullet system… yet
As most enthusiasts and operators in the industry would expect, there was no grand showing of a fully viable, scalable and profitable solution for a vertical farm this year at Indoor Ag-Con Asia. With so many different growing systems, ranging from high performing hydroponics to scaleable aquaponics, the silver bullet still remains elusive for the best performing and most versatile crop cultivation system.
While many of the notable presentations covered the pros and cons of certain growing systems, none were clearly comparable in the cultivation of the same crops or products. And further industry comparisons become even more difficult as many of the turn-key solution companies keep proprietary aspects of their system, well, proprietary.
As disappointing as that may seem for the event, there was a diverse range of applications for new crop varieties grown indoors. Companies and research groups continue to push the frontier of plant recipes and techniques in their growing system using new lights, better controls, and more meaningful data.
2. Governments are finally taking notice
Singapore’s Minister of State, Koh Poh Koon, browsing the exhibition hall
It seems fitting that Singapore was chosen to be the venue for this year's Indoor Ag Con Asia event. Since 2015, the Singaporean government has publicly pursued a new smart agriculture future’ with significant policy and private sector activity as a result. New small-scale ventures as well as large corporate forays into the world of indoor Ag are receiving both support and increased scrutiny to produce food efficiently without compromising its quality and safety.
“We are committed to creating a robust food and agricultural sector of the future”.
This year, Singapore’s Minister of State, Koh Poh Koon, gave the opening keynote to the event. He described the Singapore government’s stance as
“Committed to creating a robust food and agricultural sector of the future”. Singapore is a clear example of a country with fast-moving policies intended to accommodate and possibly foster indoor agriculture.
However, the Netherlands also had a large presence at the event, sharing their respective successes and challenges in the first morning of presentations. Additionally, other government representatives were in attendance, ranging from countries around the world like Israel and Malaysia. Many of them hoping to learn about new technologies to better upgrade the efficiency of their respective countries traditional agricultural sectors.
But for urban planners and zoning commissions, big questions remain in how to fit the binary of classifying these farms as industrial or truly agricultural if marketed as ‘organic’.
3. Consistency is key
Among all aspects of indoor agriculture, consistency remains a critical benefit and continued challenge in using these systems. The quality of plants produced in indoor agricultural operations was one aspect, almost religiously touted throughout the event. Advancements in better environmental controls for air, light, water and plant nutrition are helping farmers ensure a more reliable look and taste for growing a variety of produce.
However, quantity and price continue to be clear challenges for systems that operationally still have many hiccups. Though most presenters shared success in better forecasts and reliability for the quantity of crops produced in their system, there were shared concerns in the difficulty to scale quickly and meet consumer or wholesale demands in time. Setting up new precision growing systems take some time to test and fine tune, complicating a clear picture of quantity and price.
4. Microbiome and nanotechnologies are making new headway
Aside from the core operating technologies of indoor farms like LEDs, sensors and growing beds, new technologies also made an appearance. Like many technologies in this sector, the benefits focused on growing more with less, in an attempt to reduce crop loss from disease, minimize the water required, and improve crop quality and health.
Presentations highlighting recent advancements in genomic extraction offer new opportunities for farms. Microbiome analysis is one example of one method to better cultivate healthy plant ecosystems from the molecular and bacterial level. Instead of introducing synthetic solutions, companies like Metabiome, highlighted their success in optimizing natural mycorrhizae ecosystems.
Other technologies, like nanotechnologies, were showcased in one successful application to inoculate fish with the equivalent of ‘flu shots’, to prevent the spread of bacterial and fungal diseases common in aquaponic systems. And this seems to be just the start in use cases for nanotech among these indoor systems.
5. Artificial Intelligence comes big and small
One feature that was alluded to in almost all presentations throughout the event were new opportunities for automation and the insinuation of artificial intelligence (AI). While many indoor farms have started to build systems to reduce labor costs, there is still a critical need for farming operators in quality and process management of the plants.
Yet Improvements in one technique of AI, called computer vision, are bolstering new applications for anomaly detection and harvest quality in indoor systems. However, there is still a steep learning curve for computers to successfully utilize AI in practice.
While manual automation is one goal for indoor farms, Blackbox automation (e.g. where to plant and when) offers another incredible opportunity to reduce the complexity farmers face mixing and matching different systems, lights and crop varieties. With so many variables involved in operating an indoor farm, computational assistance and automated planning will likely reduce many farmer headaches — and create shared opportunities — in the very near future.
6. Growing lettuce and big data
ZipTower System showcased in exhibition hall
While most presentations focused on the quality of production inside indoor growing facilities, there was also a great deal of interest in a fairly new byproduct of these farms — data. Big data.
Much of the focus in the industry has centered around basic viability of growing certain crops like leafy greens and tomatoes. But new improvements in sensor and IoT tech is shifting focus toward actionable insights from the farm data collected. Ramy Sanad from the sensor and controls company Autogrow, described in his presentation how having data isn’t enough, it needs to a priority to “make data meaningful” for the farmer. And for some in the industry, these data could be a priceless byproduct.
Some presentations did disclose “plant recipes” or the specific environmental factors required to grow healthy lettuce and leafy greens. But conversations primarily stayed away from any data or metrics to more profitable commercial plants like strawberries.
While many indoor facilities struggle to profitably sell their product in the market, it is possible that their crop data could be even more valuable for other farmers and companies alike — that is, if they are willing to sell it for the right price.
7. The new frontier of online delivery
Aside from the long list of technical difficulties involved in indoor growing systems, reaching a reliable market also remains elusive for many small to medium scale indoor growers.
Despite the high quality output of indoor farms, meeting demand at scale and in time seems to deter many wholesalers and 3rd party distributors from long-term partnerships. However, online food delivery services in countries like the United States, Singapore and China seem to offer a new frontier of opportunities connecting farmer directly to the consumer.
As Robert Chen, President and CEO of AEssense, noted in his presentation, growing food close to online food distribution centers can help cut costs in storage and delivery. This allows the grower and the distributor to pass savings down to consumers — making their products more competitive in the market.
8. Diversifying factory farms to the niche
Presenters repeatedly recognized the need for farms to better define their value proposition as cleaner, better, more nutritious products, etc. However, some speakers at Indoor Ag-Con suggested widening the scope of indoor ag products to secondary and even non-edible crops.
Cannabis is an example, but rarely mentioned throughout the entire event in Singapore for obvious legal reasons. But it isn’t the only high value, non-edible crop that can be grown well inside. Nishida Shin, of Japan’s Nihon Advanced Agri highlighted recent success in organic food coloring from plants cultivated inside a plant factory.
The rising demand for specialized ‘organic’ products used in or around food production seems to also provide new opportunities for profitability in the sector. While the same benefits for growing food inside apply, these secondary commercial products, like natural food coloring, can be better controlled for their quality, while sold at an even higher premium in these niche markets — speeding up ROI for the facility capex costs.
9. Pain Point obscurity
In addition to unclear comparisons between systems growing similar crops, it was also challenging to ascertain specific pain points. Product feedback is critical for these systems, especially the turnkey solutions. While most of these companies work closely with their customer/farmers to improve systems, their proprietary nature prevents startups from building novel solutions, sharing feedback from customers or focus groups, or collectively improving system optimizations based on shared experiences.
Indoor Ag is an industry still early in its development, yet it remains riddled with gaps in efficiency and operational pain points. Also, obscurity helps to protect the existing IP of turnkey product systems and companies, it prevents tinkering improvements and solutions for the industry as a whole.
Though each system is different in requirements for operation and management, seeding and harvesting both remain major labor hurdles for indoor agriculture operations with fairly apparent pain points.
10. ROI is still a curse word
For many indoor farmers starting to operate facilities in this space, the term ROI still seems to conjure speculation and deep anxiety for farmers and investor alike. On the one hand, these numbers are critical to truly assess the viability of indoor agricultural operations. On the other hand, ROI forecasts are subject to change drastically (for better or worse) based on crop health, facility size, development of disruptive and scalable technologies, and market demand.
At the conference presenters of larger facilities seemed to suggest an ROI ranging between 3 to 5 years, while others in the industry continue to suggest a more conservative range of 5 – 7 years. Again, both of these estimates continue to depend on the size of the facility and the market they are growing for (and actively selling to). To date, there is still no highly profitable large scale prototype.
Is Hydroponics The Most Sustainable Type of Farming?
Is Hydroponics The Most Sustainable Type of Farming?
By Emily Monaco
Hydroponics seem a bit like farming technology from the future. These soilless growing systems use liquid nutrient solutions to feed plants grown on stacked towers in enclosed greenhouses, where, often, everything impacting plant growth — from the light plants receive to the moisture of their roots— is controlled by a computer. Hydroponics has been touted by some as the most sustainable growing system out there — thanks, in large part, to the fact that these farming systems can be built in close proximity to the cities they need to feed.
Abandoned factories and shipping containers have become home to such greenhouses, which are also vertical farms. MightyVine, a Chicago-based hydroponic tomato growing facility, built its greenhouses on former farmland that had had its topsoil removed to prepare it for development. This planned project was subsequently abandoned, leaving the land empty and not farmable. But by building a greenhouse, suddenly, the land was agriculturally viable again.
Yet, when the National Organic Standards Board announced its recent decision to allow hydroponic farming operations to be certified USDA organic, many proponents of the organic label reacted in dismay. (1) This, explains Dr. Linley Dixon, chief scientist of organic watchdog group the Cornucopia Institute, is because hydroponic growing does not support soil health. This major detail is not only one of the key principles of the organic farming movement, but it’s also one of the most important contributing factors to reversing the effects of climate change, according to a UN Food and Agriculture Organization paper. (2)
Grace Communications Foundation defines sustainable crop production as “growing or raising food in an ecologically and ethically responsible manner.” (3) In order to do this, the philanthropic organization explains, growers must show sustainable practices in several categories — from minimal pesticide use to a focus on soil health, to water conservation — with an overall goal of ensuring that these practices can be sustained over time.
In order to best judge the sustainability of hydroponics, then, it’s interesting to look into how these operations fare in various categories pertaining to sustainability.
5 Questions About Hydroponics Sustainability
1. Transport
Transport is one of the first benefits of hydroponics most proponents of the farming system will cite when arguing in favor of its sustainability. After all, hydroponic operations can be set up within urban centers, thus substantially reducing the need for transport (and the gas-guzzling it requires).
Wil Hemker, a scientist, and fellow at the University of Akron notes that this is particularly interesting when you consider perishable, high-value crops, such as leafy greens.
“Not all crops can be tailored to hydroponic and container growing,” Hemker says, pointing to grains and root crops as two commodities that are better grown in the ground. But when it comes to very perishable crops, growing them locally may be the best option: not only are they less likely to suffer over the course of long transport journeys, but produce picked when ripe and eaten quickly is a better source of vitamins and minerals. (4)
“To think like a developing country and keep everything local as much as we can — that just makes a carbon cycle sense in our world,” adds Hemker.
That said, Hemker also notes that transport is not necessarily the most important factor to consider when comparing the sustainability of hydroponics with that of field-grown crops. “If you look at the carbon footprint for shipping, it’s a very small percentage of overall production,” he explains. “So even though its perception might be heavy, it’s not so much when you actually do the numbers.”
2. Energy Use
While indoor agriculture currently expends more energy than field growing, the industry is seeing a number of innovations that could close this gap. “As renewable energies are coming onboard, better materials for the greenhouses for indoor agriculture are coming onboard, and that energy load will come down,” says Hemker.
This, of course, depends on the policies of individual growers. MightyVine’s technology comes from the Netherlands, where farmers have been committed to sustainable hydroponics since 2000. “Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry, ‘Twice as much food using half as many resources,’” writes Frank Viviano for National Geographic. (5)
In this densely populated nation (1,300 inhabitants per square mile), high production is important, and it is here that many of the major developments in hydroponic technology have occurred.
Lazarski notes that the Dutch technology his company uses takes advantage of diffused glass to make the most of sunlight, making greenhouses less demanding in energy than many others in the industry. And other innovations, specifically in using renewable energy, could help reduce the carbon load of hydroponics even further.
3. Pesticide Use
As far as pesticides are concerned, hydroponics has as all other systems beat. Whether it’s conventional pesticides and herbicides like glyphosate and dicamba, or organic alternatives like copper, hydroponic operations have less need for such treatments than field-grown crops. “In a well-maintained, well-integrated indoor horticulture practice, there are no pesticides or herbicides needed,” explains Hemker.
The enclosed environment makes it easier to keep insects out, and integrated pest management techniques are not only available but widely used among hydroponic growers. Many growers even introduce natural predators into the enclosed systems to weed out any pests.
“Every tomato greenhouse has some kind of white fly in it,” Lazarski explains, noting that in order to combat them, “You bring in these little microscopic wasps on cards. They’ve evolved to hatch, fly around and look for white fly eggs, and lay their eggs on the white fly eggs. It’s almost like an alien type horror movie on a microscopic level.”
Pesticides are always available as a last resort, but as compared to field-grown produce, where the first line of defense is pesticides, there’s no contest. And even when pesticides are used in hydroponic systems, they are never leached into the environment, as can happen with conventional or organic field-grown crops.
4. Soil Health
In addressing pesticides, however, we do touch upon one key downside of hydroponic farming: a closed-loop system may not add pesticides to the soil, but that also doesn’t contribute to soil health at all.
“Soil is such a carbon sink,” says Dixon. He adds that, in not adding organic matter to the soil, hydroponics are missing out on a key way of contributing to a solution to climate change: building the soil’s ability to draw carbon out of the atmosphere. (6)
While Hemker notes that some hydroponic growers do add back to the soil by composting, for example, Dixon believes that it’s not enough. “The problem is that’s not really cycling nutrients because there’s no crop plant in the soil there to take up those nutrients,” he says.
Some operations work with local farmers to put their compost to good use, but the truth remains that contributing to soil health is a much more difficult endeavor for a hydroponic system than for a soil-based system.
5. Water Conservation
When it comes to water use, hydroponic growing tends to be a better bang for the ecological buck. The Dutch growers who have pioneered sustainable hydroponics have reduced their dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent, reports National Geographic, and Hemker notes that, on average, 30 to 40 percent less water is needed to grow a pound of lettuce indoors than outdoors.
“We use 10 percent of the water of field-grown tomatoes,” says Lazarski of MightyVine’s operations. “And that’s because we catch all the water from the roof, and the snowmelt, we retain it in a basin, and then we pump it into the greenhouse.”
“As far as water is concerned, which is typically a much bigger concern in U.S. agriculture, hydroponics is hands-down the far better than conventional growing,” Lazarski adds.
That said, Dixon claims that a properly executed soil-based system can compete with a hydroponic system when it comes to water usage. “If you have soil that’s high in organic matter, it captures rainwater as well,” he says, noting that a “real” organic farm uses about the same amount of water as a container operation.
Looking Beyond the Utopia
Ultimately, comparing the ideal hydroponic and the ideal soil-based system is futile when so few operations of either kind are ideal. Large-scale hydroponic and container operations have the same problems as large-scale organic or conventional farms: They’re cutting corners when it comes to sustainability to be more profitable.
“In some ways, it’s an unfortunate debate because it pits people against each other who have many of the same goals in mind,” writes Dan Nosowitz for Modern Farmer. “Organic activists and small hydroponic farmers both want to grow food sustainably, at their core. But, as with most of the agricultural developments during the current administration, this decision isn’t about small farmers.” (7)
“I get this question all the time,” says Josh Lee, the farmer behind Green Top Farms, a salad delivery company that grows its microgreens in a New York City vertical farm. “What’s better: hydroponics or growing in the dirt? And that’s kind of a loaded question because you could just say, ‘What’s better: growing in dirt over here, or growing in dirt over here?’”
Lee is the first to admit that, while he was initially excited by the idea of a “utopia of beautiful green cities where all these towers are growing all these different crops,” and he currently believes that his work brings New Yorkers closer to their food, all is not perfect with hydroponics. “I’m very quick to shoot down any ideas about indoor hydroponic farming being the be-all-end-all solution to climate change woes,” he says.
The answer may, in fact, reside in the coexistence of both systems. Not only can hydroponic and vertical farming systems keep people closer to their food (both in mindset and in geographical proximity), but the promise of innovations within the industry lends promise to the idea of a sustainable farming future: lighting conditions can be changed and the mineral makeup of nutrient solutions can be modified, for example, to improve the nutritional makeup of certain fruits and vegetables without needing to turn to genetically modified products.
“You don’t have those engineering opportunities in the soil,” says Hemker.
Lee’s utopia of green cities may not be the answer, but it seems we can’t take hydroponic farming out of the equation when it comes to developing a truly sustainable farming solution for the future.
This story comes from OrganicAuthority.com and is written by Emily Monaco. Organic Authority obsessively covers the latest trends and news in food, seasonal recipes, nutrition, wellness, natural beauty, and more. Organic Authority has all the tips and expert advice you need for delicious good living.
Vertical Aeroponics: The future of Farming?
Vertical Aeroponics: The future of Farming?
- Andrew Boardwine aboardwine@florencenews.com Reporter
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- January 17, 2018
FLORENCE, S.C. — The future of growing fruits and vegetables rests vertically, growing up, instead of horizontally, growing out.
Tim Blank, Tower Gardener founder, and Kellie Altman, of G Squared Farm, tag-teamed to provide a session detailing the future of farming through vertical aeroponics on Wednesday at the S.C. AgriBiz & Farm Expo
Blank began working as a researcher in EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Orlando in 1992 and stayed at Disney until 2005, when he decided to start Future Growing, a company that became a leader in building vertical aeroponic food farms.
“I look at the one-size-fits-all vertical system as crop insurance,” Blank said. “The idea behind all of this is to use the space in your greenhouse more efficiently. When you grow up instead of growing out, you reduce capital cost and natural resources by heating and cooling a much smaller place as well.”
Aeroponics is a planting technique in which the roots hang suspended in the air while nutrients are delivered to them in a mist.
“Aeroponics is considered to be the best way to grow,” Blank said. “We’re getting more oxygen to the roots, and you don’t have to deal with the excess grown medium. Science continues to prove that this is becoming a more efficient way to grow plants at a higher rate.”
Blank creates “tower gardens” that allow the plants to grow vertically and use the aeroponic method.
He said the foundation is targeting large and small greenhouses, farms inside and outside and farms on rooftops across the nation.
“There are a lot of rooftops around the nation,” Blank said. “We specialize in being able to transform a rooftop into a garden with our tower gardens, and the idea is that the urban farmer can grow any crop and move with the market.”
Kellie Altman, of Johnsonville, has a farm that is 3,000 square feet with 40 tower gardens and said that tower gardens became her new passion after seeing the power of the nutrients they provided.
“They are set up to help you succeed,” Altman said. “It’s a company that promotes healthy living, physically and financially. Our entire family loves it, and it’s something that has made all of us closer.”
How Do You Create A Sustainable, Economical Vertical Farm?
How Do You Create A Sustainable, Economical Vertical Farm?
Princeton University’s Vertical Farming Project aims to improve the sustainability of vertical farm production systems for commercial growers.
The lack of accurate information related to vertical farming production was one of the main reasons that Dr. Paul Gauthier decided to start the Vertical Farming Project at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. Gauthier, who is Associate Research Scholar in Environmental Plant Physiology and Modeling, began the project in April 2016 after he saw an increasing number of growers considering starting vertical farm operations.
Paul Gauthier established the Princeton Vertical Farming Project to study the challenges vertical farm growers would face in the future including manpower, technology and sustainability.
Photos courtesy of Paul Gauthier, Princeton Univ.
“I noticed that a lot of the information related to hydroponic growing was coming from the 1990s and there was a lot of misinformation,” Gauthier said. “I decided to address some of the issues that growers were having by starting a vertical farm project and showing growers how to improve the production systems. There was a lot of information about growing in greenhouses, but very little information on growing in a vertical farm. With the Vertical Farming Project I wanted to investigate the challenges that vertical farm growers would face in the future including manpower, technology and sustainability, which is one of my main goals.”
Training Vertical Farm Technicians
While Gauthier was interested in helping growers develop better hydroponic production systems, he was also interested in training Princeton students who could go on to help advance the vertical farm industry.
“Because of the interest in vertical farming and more people looking at starting vertical farm operations, there is going to be a demand for high technology jobs to operate these facilities,” Gauthier said. “When I started this project I wanted to create a program for training students about this technology. Nutrient film technique (NFT) and deep water culture are the two most common vertical farm production systems currently being used by growers. These are the systems that my students are working with and doing different projects.
Although Paul Gauthier and his students are studying more conventional crops like lettuce and kale, they are also researching crops less commonly grown in vertical farms like wheat and peas.
“One of the questions that we wanted to answer when we began the project was how long does it take a grower to break even and to start making money. We began looking at how to create a business plan using a vertical farm inside a building and not a greenhouse. We wanted to determine how long it will take using a vertical farm for a small company to break even. We also wanted to look at energy consumption and water consumption.”
While Gauthier has seen a lot of excitement from his students about growing vegetables, he said they don’t necessarily understand the limitations to growing plants.
“A typical way that I interact with the students is to have them work on the vertical farm for at least two months,” he said. “They come to the farm almost every day to monitor pH, temperature and EC. I ask them to look at the changes in the plants. I want them to learn how a vertical farm works and how plants react to changes in pH, EC and temperature.
“I then ask them to come up with their own projects based on their own interests. Every time we grow a new crop in the vertical farm we collect information on water, energy and nutrient consumption.”
Undergraduate student Jesenia Haynes is working on a research project to determine the carbon footprint of vertical farms. Haynes is studying the impact on the environment producing kale and lettuce in a vertical farm versus a conventional farm.
“What would happen if there were 10,000 vertical farms?” Gauthier said. “Would that be something that is good for the environment? Jesenia came up with a project to try to determine the impact growing a hydroponic crop could have on the environment. She is working on determining a way to calculate the amount of carbon that is created by producing a kilo or about 2 pounds of lettuce in a vertical farm. Undergraduate student Seth Lovelace is monitoring plant growth with sensors and another student will be studying the production of strawberries in a vertical farm.”
Undergraduate student Jesenia Haynes is working on a research project to determine the carbon footprint of vertical farms.
Designing An Efficient, Sustainable Production System
The vertical farm system that Gauthier designed incorporates both deep water culture and NFT systems equipped with broad-spectrum white light LEDs.
“Because I’m a plant physiologist, I know that plants use light from a broad range of wavelengths and not just blue and red,” he said. “I was focused on incorporating white light with a full light spectrum. The bottom part of the vertical farm system is a deep water pond used for research. In the NFT troughs, we are growing lettuce, basil, cilantro, kale, peppers, snow peas, and strawberries. I am also growing wheat, barley, and edible flowers.
“The reason I am focusing on a variety of crops other than leafy greens is that we can’t feed the world on just lettuce. In order to be able to feed the world using vertical farming, as a lot of people are claiming, then we have to be able to change peoples’ appetites. There are a lot of other crops besides lettuce. If we can change the flavor by altering the taste, we may be able to change the appetite and diet of a lot of people. Then we may be able to change the way we feed the world.”
One of the major issues Gauthier is studying is finding solutions that make vertical farming more environmentally friendly.
“One of the big issues with vegetable farming is creating waste,” he said. “All of this waste has to be treated. One of the main wastes of this treatment is green water. We don’t want this green water to be released and to pollute more areas.”
Another area of interest for Gauthier is to incorporate vertical farming into architectural building design.
Paul Gauthier and his students, including Seth Lovelace, are looking to determine the environmental impact aspect of vertical farming before the industry and its operations get too big.
“We are cooperating with some of the architects on campus to find a new solution to integrate vegetable farming into the architectural design not just for food, but to also integrate vegetable farming into the design of new buildings to make the vegetable production a part of our everyday life,” he said. “These buildings provide a controlled environment. Putting vegetable farming into a building could benefit what is already inside the building.
“The environmental impact aspect of vertical farming is the challenge for the next five years. It is especially important to do before the industry and its operations get too big. Once the industry grows too large it will be very difficult to investigate. What we are trying to determine and to push is to develop sustainable systems that are affordable for everybody to begin a startup. We don’t want people to have to upgrade to a more sustainable system. We are trying to develop a sustainable system right now.”
For more: Paul Gauthier, Princeton University, Department of Geosciences, (609) 480-2690; ppg@princeton.edu; https://verticalfarming.princeton.edu.
David Kuack is a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas; dkuack@gmail.com.
A Jeff Bezos-Backed Warehouse Farm Startup is Building 300 Indoor Farms Across China
A Jeff Bezos-Backed Warehouse Farm Startup is Building 300 Indoor Farms Across China
Inside Plenty's first farm in South San Francisco, California. Plenty
January 23, 2018
The vertical farming startup Plenty just announced that it plans to build 300 organic, indoor farms in or near Chinese cities.
- In late 2017, the company scored $200 million in the largest-ever ag-tech deal. The funding round was led by Softbank Ventures and included DCM Ventures as well as funds that invest on behalf of Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
- Due to rising concerns surrounding food safety, middle-class Chinese consumers are increasingly willing to pay a premium for organic produce.
In the past two decades, China has experienced several food scandals. Between 2001 and 2006, toxic mushrooms killed 148 people and poisoned over 500 others in Yunnan. In 2010, Hunan police shut down a large operation that produced "green beans" from dyed soybeans.
As a result, a growing number of Chinese residents are turning to organic produce, which is considered safer since its production is more regulated, according to The Guardian.
A Jeff Bezos-backed indoor farming company called Plenty will soon harvest some of this organic produce. But unlike traditional farms, it will grow crops on LED-lit 20-foot-tall towers, which do not require soil, pesticides, or even natural sunlight. The technique is called vertical farming.
Plenty says it will build 300 vertical farms in or near major Chinese cities, where it will capitalize on the country's growing middle-class demand for organic produce. The first farmwill open next year, Bloomberg reports. In Beijing and Shanghai, the company will also build centers where customers can taste produce.
To date, the Silicon Valley startup has raised $226 million. In July, $200 million came from a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision in the largest ever ag-tech deal. The round included DCM Ventures as well as funds that invest on behalf of Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
In a past interview with Business Insider, Plenty CEO Matt Barnard said the company hopes to eventually sell its organic produce for the same price as traditional produce. Plenty plans to drive down operational costs by automating its growing processes as much as possible.
In the spring, Plenty will open a 100,000-square-foot farm in the greater Seattle, Washington area. The 100,000-square-foot warehouse facility will grow 4.5 million pounds of greens annually, which is enough to feed around 183,600 Americans, according to the USDA. The company also has a smaller non-production facility in Wyoming, where it has tested different growing processes for over 300 crops.
Hate The Taste of Kale? Artificial Intelligence Could Help
Farmers are using technology to tweak the color and flavor of vegetables, including algorithms that can suggest changes in factors like the amount of water vegetables receive and what temperature they’re grown in.
Hate The Taste of Kale? Artificial Intelligence Could Help
Jan 10, 2018
One company is using AI to grow beautiful lettuce without chemicals
Holger Hollemann/AFP/Getty Images
Some farmers are turning to high tech solutions to improve the taste of kale.
By MARIA LAMAGNA | REPORTER
Don’t like the taste of kale? Maybe you will soon.
Kale’s distinctive flavor has been compared to a “dusty bitter blanket,” but now there’s hope for those haters from an unlikely ally: artificial intelligence.
Farmers are using technology to tweak the color and flavor of vegetables, including algorithms that can suggest changes in factors like the amount of water vegetables receive and what temperature they’re grown in.
Can AI improve the taste of kale?
One such company, Bowery, which bills itself as “the modern farming company” and was founded in 2015, has an indoor farm based in New Jersey where scientists are adjusting the taste of vegetables including kale.
“Our system is able to say, ‘Do we like what we’re seeing, do we not like it?’” said Irving Fain, Bowery’s co-founder, and CEO. The company’s algorithms analyze everything from the nutrients in the plants’ water to the type of light they are grown under. Bowery said he’s able to grow vegetables without “blemishes,” even though they use no chemicals in their growing process.
See also: Why you may want to avoid eating romaine lettuce
Besides potentially improving taste, that could have another benefit: cutting down on waste. About 6 billion pounds of fresh produce go unharvested or unsold every year, according to an estimate by Feeding America, a nonprofit based in Chicago. Some of those losses happen because of pests, disease, whether or labor shortage, but another portion gets thrown away because it has physical imperfections, which grocery-store shoppers find to be a turnoff. The produce that is misshapen or blemished goes unsold.
As far as improving the taste of kale, Fain might have a tough battle to fight. Although it is trendy, and restaurants have increased their menu items that contain the leafy green, Americans still much prefer lettuces like iceberg. The U.S. either produces or imports approximately 13.5 pounds of iceberg per capita, compared to just 0.6 pounds of kale, according to the latest government data available.
Nutritional content also varies, depending on the lettuce. In one cup of chopped raw kale, there are about 2.2 grams of protein (4% of daily value), 1.3 grams of fiber (5% daily value) and vitamins including Vitamin A (206% daily value) and Vitamin C (134%.) A similar serving size of spinach has about 2% of daily value for protein, 3% of daily value for fiber, 56% of Vitamin A and 14% of Vitamin C. Romaine and iceberg, while they are low in calories, contain very little protein or calcium.
How The AgTech Investment Boom Will Create A Wave Of Agriculture Unicorns
agtech into the realm of global scalability.
Softbank's Vision Fund led the $200 million Series B to bet on indoor farms while also opening doors to key partners in Asia and the Middle East to reach affluent consumers. Tech investors like Japan's Softbank are seeking to bring
JAN 16, 2018
How The AgTech Investment Boom Will Create A Wave Of Agriculture Unicorns
CONTRIBUTOR Stories for expanding horizons. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
GUEST POST WRITTEN BY Arama Kukutai & Spencer Maughan
Partners at Finistere Ventures, an agtech venture capital firm located in the Bay Area and San Diego.
A wall of kale and greens growing vertically inside a modular farming unit (James MacDonald/Bloomberg)
Mega funding rounds from companies like Farmers Business Network, Gingko Bioworks, Indigo Ag and Plenty are redefining the agtech investment landscape as we move into 2018. Consistent with the first wave of agtech startups maturing, companies are looking to scale in a sector that has around $3 trillion value at the farm gate, and multiples of that downstream. In turn, a more diverse universe of investors supporting these companies is signaling a sea change in agtech investing. The total investment in 2017 topped $1.5 billion-- setting a new record. With indoor farming, disruptive retail, along with genome and microbial tech all vying for the big dollars, there is understandable angst for the “have nots” trying to attract capital to compete with the “have mores.”
Historically, over 95% of agtech exits have occurred via M&A as technologies were incorporated into the established distribution channels and farmer networks. These were commanded by the “Big Six,” retail leaders like CPS, Wilbur Ellis and Winfield, and farm hardware specialists like AgCo, Case NH and John Deere. These established players have been the market makers for exits to date, which was highlighted in 2017 by the Blue River and Granularexits.
Vertical farms
However, things are changing. The increased exit activity, alongside increased traditional VC dollars entering the agtech market, has motivated growth investors to support market scaling as the sector matures. Softbank's Vision Fund led the $200 million Series B to bet on indoor farms while also opening doors to key partners in Asia and the Middle East to reach affluent consumers. Tech investors like Japan's Softbank are seeking to bring agtech into the realm of global scalability.
Greater capital availability will drive significant revenue growth for an elite group of companies providing a financing foundation for the first set of agtech unicorns. The spike in global interest into the agtech arena will fuel more innovation and growth. Plenty is reshaping indoor agriculture with its vertically integrated, high-tech farm coupled with an aggressive plan to rollout its fresh produce to consumers.
Exemplifying this is the recent financing by the Investment Corp of Dubai, which led the largest round in agtech to date – a $203 million round into Indigo Ag in December. We expect growth capital to gain momentum as the appetite for direct investment from large institutional groups and sovereign wealth fund investors, especially from Asia and the Middle East, is directed into the agtech market.
Government-funded research on vertical farming reflects the changing mindset of China's leaders, turning to technology to make its land productive again. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)
Farming's hot new pesticides
Over $860 million across 35 deals was invested in companies in the microbials segment, making it the single largest investment area for agtech last year. Bayer’s joint venture with Gingko Bioworks committed $100 million to reprogramming the genome of microbes. Gingko joined Indigo as the latest agtech unicorn having raised over $400 million to date. Competitors include Zymergen, which raised $160 million in a round with Softbank, in a superheated segment.
With the microbials segment supplanting digital agriculture as the hot subsector, these technologies will face the challenge of translating from the lab and greenhouse to the field. As is often the case in agtech, the “devil is in the data.” Can these companies prove their thesis and claims on yield and efficacy where it counts?
More on Forbes: The 25 Most Innovative Ag-Tech Startups
Established players like Agricen, fast movers like Innocucor, Pivot Bio, and Plant Response are getting in on the action. There is clearly also a roll-up opportunity for the plethora of new intellectual property being developed in this segment--which will likely drive additional investment activity in 2018.
Fintech in Agtech
Agtech is really a "horizontal" sector, with tech and business models from other venture-backable sectors being replicated in the agricultural markets. Payments and insurance are two segments to watch in 2018. For example, crop insurance is an $11 billion market, which has its first startup in Crop Pro looking to innovate around insuring new technologies used by farmers.
This has the potential to help address the challenge of adopting new tech that can boost yield, manage inputs and enable financing of working capital for farmers unwilling to risk scarce capital on the newest tech trends. Likewise, enabling payment processes for retail inputs and in key supply chain steps such as grain storage are the targets of companies like Bushel-- working to bring co-operatives and traditional retailers into the mobile e-commerce era.
The data sets generated in the move from manual-based legacy systems to those integrated with emerging platforms in blockchain, promise to unlock meaningful value for farmers and their partners in the supply chain.
More on Forbes: Three Questions For An AgTech Investor
10 Macro Trends Driving Food Innovation
JAN 16, 2018 The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
10 Macro Trends Driving Food Innovation
Barb Stuckey , CONTRIBUTORI write about food: innovation, business, trends, and all things delicious. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Each year Mattson identifies a number of macro trends. Our goal is to think beyond “the next kale.” We choose lifestyle trends that have the power to influence food and beverage purchases, behavior, beliefs and, of course, innovation — the business we’re in. The reason to track trends is, ultimately, to translate them into viable business opportunities. Here are our 2018 picks.
1. Cannabis Craze
For most of my life marijuana was an illegal drug. Smoking it was risky and looked upon with suspicion. And smoking was — if not the only — the most common way it was consumed.
Increasingly, marijuana is seen as a functional food, with purported health benefits far outnumbering what consumers can get from kale, turmeric or kombucha. With a new generation growing up in states where cannabis is legal (currently about 20% of the U.S. population), new products are rapidly entering the market. Yet, the biggest challenges in launching cannabis edibles remain monumental because cannabis is still illegal at the federal level. This makes scaling a cannabis-based food or beverage difficult, if not cost-prohibitive.
Most dispensaries in San Francisco or Denver (or coming soon: your state?) carry a wide range of edible or drinkable options, many of them formulated, packaged, and marketed with savvy, like the excellent, beautiful products from Kiva Confections, Franklin Bioscience’s Lucky Edibles, and the super-fun woman-owned Kikoko Tea.
Despite the challenges, there is no question cannabis will influence the food and beverage industry, because it already has.
Cannabis 'edibles' are for sale where about 20% of the US population lives. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
2. Losing Booze
The increase in cannabis consumption and acceptance leads us to our second trend: flat to declining per-capita alcohol consumption. Many correlate this decline with consumers choosing cannabis over alcohol for the same occasions they might drink booze: relaxing at home, partying with friends, managing anxiety – you name it.
Millennials are also driving this trend given their desire to be more present and mindful in their lives, both of which are difficult when you’re drunk. Also, drinking is expensive. With uncertainty about their future, Millennials are less willing and able to spend hard-earned dollars on alcohol.
Goldman Sachs downgraded Constellation, owner of the Corona, Robert Mondavi, and other alcohol brands, and Boston Beer company, citing these consumption trends. To make sure they’re prepared for a world where consumers legally swap back and forth between alcohol and cannabis, some alcoholic beverage companies are hedging their bets.
Constellation Brands recently announced a $200 million investment in a marijuana grower, with plans to develop cannabis drinks. In Sonoma County, Rebel Coast Winery has launched its premium Sauvignon Blanc, calling it the "world's first legal cannabis-infused, alcohol-removed wine."
And the former CMO of Anheuser-Busch InBev just anointed weed the new craft beer. He also co-founded a company that sells ready-to-smoke joints, which San Franciscans can order online for delivery in about an hour. This gives new meaning to the budding space we call keyboard convenience.
Some analysts think younger consumers will swap alcohol for cannabis. The owners of Corona are investing in growing their own. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
3. Keyboard Convenience
For years, we’ve been hearing predictions around the ultimate demise of the center-store, where staples like mac-and-cheese, cereal, and bars are on their way to extinction. While consumers are excited about the fresh perimeter, we think center-store has staying power. With the convenience of shelf-stability, these categories have the benefit of being easy to buy in bulk, ship, and store indefinitely. Why wouldn’t a time-strapped household with two working parents and multiple kids trade an inconvenient trip to the store for keyboard convenience?
From the manufacturer/marketer perspective, we have seen a shift in what our entrepreneurial clients are looking for. No longer are they coming to us with dreams of selling their product line at traditional retail. They want to launch and learn online. And some of them don’t even have a long-term desire to end up at the Safeways and Krogers of the world. These Millennial entrepreneurs are changing the food industry as much as Millennial consumers.
There are unique challenges that come with e-commerce. We develop product lines specifically for this channel of distribution. I can tell you (from learning the hard way!), not every product works in e-comm in the traditional ways it used to work: from formulation to packaging to branding to marketing. Some things are obvious, like glass being less desirable for packaging than plastic. But some things are not. You simply have to box your product up and ship it via common carrier.
Amazon's Whole Foods products are now available with same-day or 2-day shipping: the ultimate in keyboard convenience. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
That’s where the old tried and true has come around to being relevant again. Our home use testing (HUT) methodology is perfect for working out product, packaging, and online ordering bugs before launch. But the ultimate benefit of e-comm is that you don’t have to test your product ad nauseam. It’s easy and cheap to launch into the channel, even through behemoth Amazon. No slotting, no huge inventory investment, no buyer meetings. It’s the best way to get consumer insights: from real consumers paying real money for real products.
4. Taking Food Personally
Over the past decade, we’ve come to embrace the fact that the food we eat profoundly impacts our health, but this wasn’t always the case. Western medicine healthcare was reactive. Eastern medicine was holistic: taking into consideration the mind, body and spirit. Taking cues from the East, today's personalized food and beverages allow consumers to follow unique diets more targeted than gluten-free, paleo, and vegan, each chosen for a consumer's one-of-a-kind physiology.
We expect this to continue, and evolve into a belief that mental health can be impacted by diet, as well. With a burgeoning understanding of the microbiome, there’s indication that the companions we have in our gut can influence not just our physical issues (such as obesity), but our mental well-being.
This is where probiotic foods, beverages, and supplements will take the leap from gastrointestinal relief, regularity and immunity benefits, to our brain. Soon we’ll be eating to stave off depression, aid in sleep, and enhance overall mood.
In fact, almost half of people surveyed by Mintel said they believe that “What I eat impacts my emotional well-being.” (Source: Better-for-you Eating Trends Spotlight on Real, September 2017). It's coming: food for mood.
5. Fast Fresh Farming (Indoors!)
Consumers increasingly desire to eat fresh and local food. But it’s challenging to grow fresh produce during the frigid winter months. One solution is to move farming indoors, and that’s now happening in great numbers at both the residential and industrial level.
With technology that meters out water and nutrients, success rates are better. Imagine growing produce inside your home, harvested just seconds before use. It’s the ultimate way to assure you’re eating fresh and clean. And it doesn’t get any more local.
Startup AVA is an indoor garden system that operates like Keurig. Consumers insert seed and nutrient pods into the AVA Byte appliance, add water, and software does the rest. Check in on your fresh herbs from the app while on vacation. It’s a way for skill-free gardeners to grow pesticide-free tomatoes and herbs.
On a commercial scale, Urban Organics uses aquaponics, which is hydroponics with a twist. Fish. The water in which the vegetables grow is also home to fish, like arctic char, who naturally fertilize the produce, making for a closed loop inside an urban warehouse in Minnesota.
Cubic Farms sells a complete hydroponic farming “system” housed in a 40-foot shipping container. Inside is an automated conveyor rotation system with lights that make it easy to grow leafy greens and herbs year-round, without pesticide.
AeroFarms grows and markets Dream Greens lettuces in vertical farms and can be installed just about anywhere. They tout flavor as one of the big advantages to having complete control over the growing process “Our kale is sweeter. Our arugula is spicier. Our herbs are brighter,” they claim.
We love the idea of shipping containers and abandoned urban buildings as the ecologically sound commercial farms of the future: located wherever they’re needed.
6. Meal Kit Migration
We know that consumers fundamentally want meal kits, but the original direct-to-consumer subscription model is not how they want to buy them. Too much commitment, too costly, too much solid waste and carbon footprint. Blue Apron and competitors Hello Fresh, Sun Basket, etc. need to find a way to sell their awesome offerings where consumers already shop for food. Chef’d is already selling meal kits at retail. When Albertson’s bought Plated, it was obvious that’s what they had in mind. Sure enough, they’ve launched Plated kits into grocery. We suspect others will soon show up there.
We also think there’s a huge opportunity for chain restaurants to reinvigorate mature brands (TGIFridays, Applebee’s, Olive Garden, etc) by creating their own meal kits, sold to lunch patrons for making later that night. Why casual dining brands haven’t done this has baffled me for years. And it’s not for lack of trying! I’ve been pitching this idea for almost a decade since The Slanted Door started selling meal kits from their takeaway shop in San Francisco’s Ferry Building.
Meal kits are here to stay, but how and who wins will be different than how and who built the segment.
7. Intrinsic Nutrition
Fat is back. Protein is hot. Sugar is out. Yes, consumers want to eat healthy, but their definition of what this means continues to change. Mostly, consumers want to eat foods that contain what we call intrinsic nutrition: nutrients that are inherent in the ingredients. Intrinsic fiber comes from beans or whole grains, not supplementation.
The next wave of innovation will be intrinsic healthy fats, protein, fiber, and other essentials from nutrient-dense foods like soy, meat, cheese, eggs, fruits, vegetables, and dairy. We know this, because we’re working on these new products now, for launch in the near future.
Another way to arrive at intrinsic nutrient benefits is fermentation. This is why we’re bullish on kombucha and other probiotic beverages, fermented vegetables such as pickles and kimchee, and fermented dairy like yogurt and kefir. The fermentation process creates healthy microbes that (someday) we’ll want to eat for mental health!
8. The Fabulous Flexitarian
What if you could tap into a growing group of consumers that make up about a third of the population? Have I got your attention? Meet the Flexitarian.
From a proprietary online consumer study we conducted in July, 2017 we’ve learned a lot about these people. There is no official definition of Flexitarian, but we consider them to self-define in two ways. First, there are those actively trying to eat less beef, chicken, pork, and dairy. And second, there’s a group that already eats a “mostly vegetarian” diet, with the occasional consumption of beef, chicken, pork, and dairy. Together, these consumers make up about one-third of the population.
It gets even more interesting when you ask all consumers—no matter what their current diet—what they plan to eat in the year ahead. A full 50% of the population claims they’ll be actively trying to eat more plant-based foods next year. The combination of these two stats indicates a growing opportunity to make plant-based eating easier for both the Flexitarian and the beef-eating carnivore.
Ripple’s new plant-based creamers address consumers’ desires for alternatives to dairy.
While many assume that vegetarians and vegans are the ones driving the growth in plant-based foods such as plant-based milks and meat, it’s simply not true. They only make up about 5 to 7% of the population and that number has remained fairly flat. It’s the Flexitarians that are driving growth, and will continue to do so in 2018 and beyond.
9. Produce Power!
Today's burgeoning ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat fruit and vegetable products go way beyond baby carrots with ranch. Consumers want to eat more fresh produce, but they’re not confident in their ability to cook with it.
Today’s produce snacking goes way beyond baby carrots and ranch. ReadyPac’s Ready Snax are pre-packed trios such as tortilla chips, natural cheese, and salsa, or fruit, cheddar, and flatbread. Mucci Farms sells snack-size Cutecumbers®, and SunDrops® grape tomatoes, packaged and marketed for kids.
Consumers want to eat more fresh produce, but they’re not confident in their ability to cook with it. Solving this conundrum are products like ReadyPac’s line of single-serve Fresh Prep’d Soup Kits, which pair fresh produce, protein like chicken breast, and concentrated soup broth. Just add water, stir, and heat. And Sunset Grown’s You Make Me pasta kits pair fresh tomatoes with dry pasta, spices, and oil. We predict many more of these meal and snack kits coming in the near future.
10. Non-Food Brands Branch Out
Licensing is one way to solve the dilemma of building new food brands because it lets companies gain access to a new brand without having to build it from scratch. Big Food has shown they're unwilling to take on this daunting challenge, preferring instead to buy brands at ridiculous multiples. Why not lean on licensing to enjoy the best of both worlds?
When Oprah enters a new industry, watch out. Now that she’s launched a line of refrigerated foods, we can expect a lot more products to launch under her partnership with Kraft Heinz.
Oprah is not the only non-food brand entering the industry. Eating Well has partnered with Bellisio to launch a line of frozen foods, 20 years after the start of Eating Well magazine. Patagonia used to sell only clothing. Today they offer brand loyalists a line of mission-driven Provisions that range from buffalo jerky to soup to smoked salmon. The question is, “What non-food brand will appear next in your cart?!”
Happy eating in 2018!
See more at www.MattsonCo.com and www.barbstuckey.com.
Robert Colangelo of Green Sense Farms, Innovating Agriculture in Northwest Indiana
Robert Colangelo of Green Sense Farms, Innovating Agriculture in Northwest Indiana
WRITTEN BY:Peter Krivas | January 10, 2018
Green Sense Farms is a regional farming business that is innovating the way we think of farming in Northwest Indiana and beyond. Started in Portage, Indiana, they made their first shipment to Whole Foods Midwest distribution center in March of 2014, at a time when it was -20 degrees outside. As you can imagine, this allows them to fill quite a profitable and eco-friendly niche in the agriculture market, as they are able to supply local grocery stores with fresh produce year-round.
Robert Colangelo, Founding Farmer, and CEO of Green Sense Farms is no stranger to the environmental world or agriculture, having worked previously for Argonne National Laboratory where he tested the effects of acid rain on different crops and a variety of other environmental businesses. Prior to vertical farming, Colangelo also was also involved in brownfield redevelopment, which takes contaminated properties and cleans them up, making the surrounding land more economically viable.
"I consider myself an environmental entrepreneur. [Vertical farming] is a new trend and everyone is talking about eating locally sourced foods that are pesticide free and I thought this was a great field to get into. I did the research and saw that the tech was robust and scalable and went about building our first farm in Portage, Indiana," said Colangelo.
The leafy greens they grow are harvested from stacking vertical towers that allow them to maximize their indoor space and take advantage of a greater yield. Green Sense has quite a high-tech facility, using automated computer controls to provide the plants with precise levels of lighting, nutrients, water, temperature, and humidity to ensure the plants grow to their maximum potential.
As to why Portage was chosen for their first location, its central positioning and welcoming community were the top reasons.
"When we first started, Whole Foods has their Midwest Distribution Center in Munster and we knew we wanted to be close to the customer. Our model is to stay around 20 minutes away from the customer, whether that is a distribution center, hospital, college campus or military base," said Colangelo.
Colangelo is originally from the Chicago suburbs but is happy to be living and operating out of Northwest Indiana.
"I'm happy to be a transplant and a Hoosier. I moved here when we first started our farm in Portage and found the business climate and community has been very welcoming. We're in expansion mode and we're doing a capital campaign to raise funds to build out our farm network and we've had tremendous amount of interest and support from the community and are very happy to be here at the crossroads of the country where 80% of the country is in a 24 hour drive," Colangelo explained.
Not only innovative, Green Sense Farms is also dedicated to being eco-friendly and is always working on new ways to increase energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and minimize waste. Being so close to the businesses they serve reduces their ecological footprint by lessening the travel distance of their distribution, which also ensures a fresher product for the consumer. Green Sense designs, builds, and operates their farms in the USA and licenses their technology to third parties outside of the country. Building this network of locations around the country ensures that many communities around the nation have access to locally grown leafy greens.
"Our mantra is, 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,' and our vision is zero net energy use, to be less reliant on the grid, and have zero waste. We already recycle 99% of our nutrient water, and are hoping to bring that to zero waste," said Colangelo.
Some of the crops they produce include lettuces, herbs, micro greens, and baby greens with a variety of produce in each category. Though they are headquartered in Portage, they also have a facility in far-flung Shenzen, China and are constructing another in South Bend, Indiana with at least eight proposed locations in the US and Europe. Green Sense also presells their harvest before building a new facility to ensure a viable market, which is the case in their South Bend farm and their upcoming project in Las Vegas, Nevada where a local casino has already purchased the local harvest to come. The facility in South Bend is even partnering with Indiana University South Bend to create a course, The Art of Sustainability, which will educate students more on the process of farming and about the environmental impacts that go along for the ride and how to reduce those. The work they do will also be transformed into a mural that will be featured at the farms.
Green Sense Farms also has a nationally syndicated show called the Green Sense Radio Show which is recorded live from their farm and features entrepreneurs, innovators, and academics which is heard by millions across the country on radio and in podcast format.
As with any emerging businesses, there have been challenges along the way, but Colangelo has an adaptable outlook that has helped him succeed.
"This industry is a 'fast to fail, quick to pivot,' one so you have to recognize quickly when something doesn't work. I see farming stratifying in the upcoming years. If you look at cars, 25 years ago almost all cars ran on gas, now we have pure electric and hybrids. One hundred years ago, all farming was in a field, then we had greenhouses, and now I see vertical farms as a way of further stratifying that market," explained Colangelo.
To learn more you can visit Green Sense Farms Here
What The Future Of Food Means To Dan Barber And Kimbal Musk
Dan Barber, left, and Kimbal Musk are both developing earth-friendly ways to reinvent agriculture. [Photos:Jessie English; Set Designer: Wunderkind; Grooming: Kay Louro]
What The Future Of Food Means To Dan Barber And Kimbal Musk
Two culinary-world luminaries—Blue Hill chef Dan Barber and Kitchen Community cofounder Kimbal Musk—debate the best way to approach sustainable eating.
January 11, 2018
BY DANA COWIN
Chef Dan Barber, co-owner of the Michelin-starred restaurants Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, helped pioneer the farm-to-table movement and continues to advocate for sustainable food and agricultural policies. Tech veteran Kimbal Musk runs the Kitchen, a restaurant group, venture fund, and philanthropic organization that develops teaching gardens within municipal school systems. They talk to food editor and entrepreneur Dana Cowin about their differing views for improving agriculture—and our health.
Fast Company: Let’s start by discussing the problem of industrial food. What are the challenges, and what do you think are the solutions?
Kimbal Musk: More than 50 years ago, we created this marketing term: “We have to feed the world.” We ended up taking our farmland and using it for high-calorie, low-nutrition food. We had a massive oversupply. It fed high-calorie food especially into our poor. And so we have rampant obesity and diabetes across this country. Twenty-five million acres of land today is used to grow corn ethanol, twice the size of the Central Valley in California. It takes 1 gallon of oil to make 1 gallon of corn ethanol. So it’s neutral at best for the environment, but a total waste of land if you want real food to be grown.
Dan Barber: Have you ever tried corn ethanol? It doesn’t taste very good. My problem, though, is less with the agribusiness conglomerates that run the show Kimbal just described. It’s the culture that feeds into that. It’s easy to blame the corporate entity, the Wizard of Oz controlling everything. Seven weeks ago, I was in Fargo, North Dakota, with a farmer who grows rotations of corn and soy, with some wheat, on 24,000 acres. He said to me, “If you want me to grow a diversity of crops, then tell me who’s going to pick it up from my farm. Which storage facility within 3,000 miles will take buckwheat, rye, or barley—all these crops that we talk about? Which distributors will take it from there? Which marketplace can buy it? Give me an answer to those questions, and I’ll plant whatever you want.” It was quite simple for me: Changing the culture [will require] a new paradigm for agriculture.
FC: What does that new paradigm look like?
KM: I’m a big believer in the young farmer—both soil-based and indoor—but where I’ve seen most growth is in indoor. We came across technology where we can take a [shipping] container and turn it into an indoor farm. It’s the equivalent of about 2 acres [of farmland], but you can locate it in Downtown Brooklyn. We received 1,100 applications to run these farms. We’ve seen a lot of extraordinary enthusiasm if you can bring the farm to the farmer.
DB: The future of produce from a container doesn’t make me hungry. I see benefits [in] recapitalizing our geographic and environmental strength.
KM: The technology for indoor farming is changing so fast. It’s all based on lighting and ergonomics. A year ago, we started working with [urban farming incubator] Square Roots to do about 50 pounds of baby kale in a container a week. Today, if we upgrade to new technology, we can do 300 pounds of kale in the same space.
Using light recipes—one of our farmers re-created the summer of Italy in 2009, which was a famous season for basil. When did it rain? What’s the humidity? He’s been successful in creating a delicious basil that has sold well in New York City. I personally still prefer [basil grown in] soil in a perfect season, but indoors, you can create the perfect season even on a [rainy] day like today.
DB: But I don’t want to create the perfect season. What’s a perfect season? An imperfect season for a tomato is the perfect season for kale. That’s the beauty of an ecological system. You’re growing kale in a half-acre container. We can do the same thing, but we could also grow a cover crop, and we can grow those tomatoes. We could grow a series of grains to make bread and porridge and probably run some cattle over to graze, and have a whole cuisine on that half acre, versus just producing the kale.
KM: You’re preaching to the choir.
DB: You just don’t want to invest in it.
KM: No, it’s not that. I’m leasing 208 acres in downtown Memphis that used to be a chemical cotton farm tended by prisoners. I’m converting it into an organic, soil-based demonstration farm. That community really needs it. There’s tons of farmland around Memphis: 200,000 acres are available if the market is there. But you have to create the market, and we’re trying to do both. In New York City, you’ve got plenty of markets, but the land around it is too expensive.
DB: The problem I have is that [indoor farming] ends up diffusing resources. The origin of organic is “organism,” the whole gestalt. It’s not taking the kale and putting it in a silo in a container: That’s the opposite of organic in the truest sense of why it was developed. What scares me is that you’re so good at explaining what you do, those precious resources flow to you. There is plenty of good soil out there. We just need to direct our attention to reinvigorating that culture of agriculture, which is so important for the future of good food.
Musk, left, sees potential in indoor farming. Barber advocates for “recapitalizing our geographic and environmental strength.” [Photo: Melissa Golden]
FC: What do you think about the cuisine that’s being developed from this kind of technology and control?
DB: It’s not just cuisine but culture. The bumper crop that you get from a good year and the mediocre crop that you get from bad weather is where you get cuisine. Beer was created out of barley that was not good enough to make porridge or bread. You see examples of that through every culture, every cuisine. In your scenario, those imperfections don’t arise.
KM: They do in our restaurants, but what we have learned is that people still want a salad in January. We get [greens] shipped in from California or even Australia, which is so crazy. If an indoor farmer can grow arugula in January, we would rather support this person than bring it in from a few thousand miles away.
DB: But wouldn’t you rather convince people not to eat salad in January? I mean that seriously. The culture has shifted. A preponderance of people do not want the tomato or raspberry you can get in January. Wouldn’t you like to help make that happen with salad greens?
KM: At our more upscale restaurant, the Kitchen, we hope to hold a candle to Blue Hill [in seasonality]. At our Next Door restaurants, which are designed to be more affordable, you have to baby-step [those customers] into real food. They’re used to eating cheeseburgers all the time, and we want people to eat more healthily and more sustainably. That does mean a salad in January. I would love to pretend that isn’t the case, but it is.
DB: If I’m an investor, I hear what you’re saying. The idea of growing all of our salad needs across the street in a tower is intoxicating. But if I project forward a decade, I’d rather change that culture. The food culture in America is quite pliable. You wouldn’t be bringing up kale five years ago. Greek yogurt. Sushi. We take on new stuff with dizzying speed.
KM: The money is going to indoor because, from an investor’s perspective, someone who wants to live on a 20-acre farm can make a nice life, but there’s no business there.
FC: Kimbal, you’re an amazing fundraiser. How would you solve Dan’s problem?
KM: I go to the Iowa farm conference every year to meet with these farmers, and 56% of land there is owned by people 65 years or older. When these lovely folks pass on, someone’s going to buy their land. This is trillions of dollars worth of land being used for corn ethanol, a terrible unprofitable use. Their kids don’t want it. Their grandkids don’t even want it; [they’re] in their forties. You’re talking about the great-grandkids who might take it over. It’ll be the most extraordinary transfer of land to the youngest generation. I go there every year and spend two days listening to them complain. If you’re 25 years old and you get 100 acres of land in Iowa, you’ll make $21,000 a year if you are lucky. You should come with me to the conferences, because when the right time comes, we’re going to find out what to do with this land. And you’re talking about millions of acres.
DB: But we already know what the right thing to do is. “Give us the market and we’ll grow whatever you want.” I have heard that from the most conservative old [farmers] and the young folks. It rests on our shoulders to create that change.
This story was adapted from the Fast Company Innovation Festival.
A version of this article appeared in the February 2018 issue of Fast Company magazine.
Urban Farming Is The Future Of Agriculture
Urban Organics opened a new facility this past summer. It’s much larger than the organization’s other locations, and could provide more than 124,700 kilograms (about 275,000 pounds) of fresh fish and nearly 215,500 kilograms (more than 475,000 pounds) of produce to the nearby area each year.
January 16, 2018
Surplus and Scarcity
The planet is growing more food than ever, and yet millions of people continue to starve worldwide. People are hungry everywhere — in the country, in the suburbs. But increasingly, one of the front lines in the war against hunger is in cities. Asurban populations grow, more people find themselves in food deserts, areas with “[l]imited access to supermarkets, supercenters, grocery stores, or other sources of healthy and affordable food,” according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
New technologies are changing the equation, allowing people to grow food in places where it was previously difficult or impossible, and in quantities akin to traditional farms.
Farming at New Heights
Urban farms can be as simple as traditional small outdoor community gardens, or as complex as indoor vertical farms in which farmers think about growing space in three-dimensional terms. These complex, futuristic farms can be configured in a number of ways, but most of them contain rows of racks lined with plants rooted in soil, nutrient-enriched water, or simply air. Each tier is equipped with UV lighting to mimic the effects of the sun. Unlike the unpredictable weather of outdoor farming, growing indoors allows farmers to tailor conditions to maximize growth.
With the proper technology, farming can go anywhere. That’s what the new trend of urban farming shows — these farms go beyond simple community vegetable gardens to provide food to consumers in surrounding areas. All vertical farmers need is some space and access to electricity, no special facilities required. Farmers can buy everything they need to start and maintain their farms online as easily as shopping on Amazon.
In fact, because it’s so easy to access starting materials, officials don’t really know how many urban farms are running in the United States. A 2013 survey by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) received 315 responses from people operating facilities they describe as urban or suburban farms. However, federal grants for agriculture development show thousands of city-dwelling recipients, indicating that the number of urban farms is likely much higher.
“You have to look at these facilities in cubic feet as opposed to square feet. We can really put out a lot of produce from a facility like this,” Dave Haider, the president of Urban Organics, a company that operates urban farms based in St. Paul, Minnesota, told Futurism. Technology allows vertical farmers to control the environment in their farms, enabling them grow a lot more in the same amount of space, according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Agricultural Studies.
Image Credit: Urban Organics
Urban farms can grow more than just fruits and vegetables. Urban Organics grows three varieties of kale, two varieties of Swiss chard, Italian parsley, and cilantro, but uses the same water to raise Arctic char and Atlantic salmon — a closed-loop system often called aquaponics. Fish waste fertilizes the plants, which clean and filter the water before it goes back into the planters; excess drips into the fishtanks.
Urban Organics opened its first farm inside a former brewery complex in 2014. In the years since, it’s brought food where it’s needed most: to people in the food deserts of the Twin Cities. In 2014, The Guardian named the company one of the ten most innovative urban farming projects in the world.
“Trying to put a dent in the industry when it comes to food deserts is really one of the driving factors behind our first farm, which was actually located in a food desert,” Haider said. Urban Organics sells its produce to local retailers and provides locally-sourced fish to nearby restaurants. “That was sort of a sort of our approach — let’s try to grow produce and raise high-quality protein in an area that needs it most.” As more people move to cities, problems like food scarcity might get even worse.
The vertical farm is also environmentally-friendly. Aquaponics systems result in very little waste. Vertical farming allows growers to use their finite area more efficiently, so we collectively can better utilize established space instead of creating more arable land, leaving more ecosystems intact. Placing the farms close to vendors and consumers means that fresher produce can reach tables with less reliance on trucks, which contribute to pollution and global warming.
What’s the Harm in an Urban Farm?
As people all over the world move to cities, urban centers sprawl to accommodate them. Often, that means taking over former farmland to support more people. In New Jersey, cities like Camden and Trenton are becoming more populous as they convert into urban spaces.
Vertical farming can limit that sprawl. “Vertical farms can actually come into these areas to recolonize the city and to take spaces that have been removed from producing anything,” Paul P.G. Gauthier, a vertical farming expert at the Princeton Environmental Institute, told Futurism.
But setting up an urban farm is often not an easy task. Finding enough space for an affordable price can present a significant obstacle for potential farmers. Vertical farmers also need to know how to operate more technology, including systems that control elements such as soil contaminants and water availability, that nature takes care of on a traditional farm.
Image Credit: Getty Images
Now, companies are popping up to help urban farmers get their facilities up and running. One Brooklyn-based company, Agritecture Consulting, helps people and organizations that want to start their own vertical farms to conduct market research and economic analyses, and to design and engineer the farm plans. The company has successfully completed more than a dozen projects to date, creating farms around the world, including some in the cramped confines of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The benefits of urban farming practices extend beyond the tangible aspects of growing food in underserved areas — there’s also a fortunate side effect of cultivating community. That’s a big draw for organizations, including Urban Organics and Agritecture Consultants.
Growing Communities
Urban Organics opened a new facility this past summer. It’s much larger than the organization’s other locations, and could provide more than 124,700 kilograms (about 275,000 pounds) of fresh fish and nearly 215,500 kilograms (more than 475,000 pounds) of produce to the nearby area each year.
The former brewing complex in which the new farm is located is undergoing a revitalization, adding artists’ condos and even a food hall, according to a press release emailed to Futurism. Haider is excited about the potential of the new facility and the impact it will have on the developing neighborhood. “Not only are we creating some good-paying, quality jobs with some medical benefits, but these are jobs that just didn’t exist in the area prior to Urban Organics. And these are the things that excite us,” he said.
This winning formula of bringing food and jobs to these areas can help build underserved communities. “Once that’s done, we get to go out to identify the next markets and then do it all over again,” Haider said.
Empowering individuals to get into urban farming can build community, too. Henry Gordon-Smith, the co-founder and managing director of Agritecture, has a side project called Plus.farm, a do-it-yourself resource website for individuals and small groups looking to start urban farms of their own. It’s his passion project, his “labor of love,” he told Futurism. “This is my way of not-so-subtly democratizing some of the best practices. It’s a great way for people to create their own approaches, which is what I really want to see.” The site allows farmers to come up with their own hacks — better lights, better sensors, better growing techniques — and share them on the site’s forum. That’s how an ancient practice like farming continues to improve with modern tools.
Farms of the Future
As people continue to study and tweak urban farming practices, we will continue to learn more about how they can benefit the areas surrounding them and the greater global community. Data on how urban farms directly affect their local communities may compel lawmakers to support and invest more in urban farms.
Gordon-Smith has planned another side project to this effect: an entire building or neighborhood to test urban farming technologies while gathering data. Though the location has not yet been decided, Gordon-Smith has already received a $2 million commitment from Brooklyn borough president Eric L. Adams; he has also taken his proposal to the New York City Council. The proposal is waiting for consideration from the Committee on Land Use, and there is no indication of when it will be decided.
Vertical farming, and urban agriculture in general, could be a significant boon for areas with the resources to invest, feeding residents and bolstering the local economy. Still, it’s important to know that urban agriculture is not a singular solution to solve a massive problem like helping people access enough nutritious food. Gauthier, the Princeton urban farming expert, points out that there are a lot of important crops that simply cannot be grown indoors, at least not yet. “We’ll probably never grow soybeans, wheat, or maize indoors,” he said. “Vertical farming is not the solution for solving hunger across the world. It’s not the solution, but it is certainly part of the solution.”
Other efforts to combat world hunger grant people in poor nations more economic freedom by giving them lines of credit, or instituting basic income policies, like those being tested in Kenya. Education, social change, and female empowerment are all social initiatives that can help more people access the food they need to sustain themselves and their families.
Urban farms have the potential to change the world’s agricultural landscape. Granted, we’re probably not going to see a planet of supercities in which all farming is done in high-rise buildings. But urban farms can bring greater yields in smaller areas, increase access to healthy options in urban food deserts, and mitigate the environmental impact of feeding the world. That seems like enough of a reason to continue to develop and expand these transformative farming practices.