Plants In The Sky

Plants In The Sky

NANETTE DUPREE 3 SEPTEMBER 2017

The urban sprawls of the world have taken over good chunks of the earth, leaving little green to be found within these cities. However, Paris has taken a measure to bring the greenery back into the city. RATP, which is a metro operator located in Place Lachambeaudie in the 12th arrondissement (a middle class district east of Paris), has become one of the first companies to place a commercial farm on top of its roof.

According to France 24, the project was crafted in 2016 when the City of Paris called for a collection of urban agricultural projects to be completed in order to make Paris more environmentally sustainable. Paris hopes to have converted 33 hectares (330,000 meters) of unused city space into agriculture by the year 2020.

The farm, dubbed Lachambeaudie farm, currently houses around 5,000 plants. It mainly focuses on growing herbs, but it also houses seasonal fruits and vegetables. Their selection includes tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and lettuce. This winter, plans are in place to plant new additions, such as watercress, spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and artichoke. All of the plants are grown hydroponically, which is a planting method developed by the Inca and Axtec Indians. It involves the plants being placed in mineral nutrient solutions mixed with water solvent instead of soil.

RATP's decision to take on this urban farm is a part of its mission to help Paris to become a more sustainable city. The company plans to convert more of its rooftops into urban farms by the projected date of 2020.

Presently, Aéromate is planning to set up more urban farms with other companies and hoping for similar success. The company has also started doing business with local restaurants and bars, and plans to harvest up to 31 tons of herbs, fruits, and vegetables per year.

Korea And The Fourth Industrial Revolution Smart Farms Swap Scarecrows For Sensors

Korea And The Fourth Industrial Revolution Smart Farms Swap Scarecrows For Sensors

Sept 04, 2017

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[ILLUSTRATED BY BAE MIN-HO]

After Mr. Choe quit his high-paying corporate job early last year, he and his wife decided to move to Yeongju, North Gyeongsang, to start a farm.

Choe, a 58-year-old former quality control manager who’s done his share of physically demanding work at a number of major Korean shipbuilders, thought farming wouldn’t be much of a challenge. It took him less than a month to realize he was wrong. Growing zucchinis and trying to make a living out of it took more of a physical toll than he had anticipated. Choe and his wife have not given up on farming just yet, but a year down the line they are still looking for ways to make the work less demanding.

This is where the convergence of farming and technology may come to the rescue, ultimately enabling people like Choe to take advantage of what’s known as “smart farming.”

In a report, the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI), a think tank dedicated to research in agricultural development and related policy, described smart farms as “a farm that can remotely and automatically maintain and manage the growing environment of crops and livestock by utilizing ICT [information and communication technology] in [greenhouses], stables, orchards and so on.”

The report notes that in controlled horticulture, or growing plants with the aid of new technology, production increases by an average 44.6 percent and gross profit increases by an average 40.5 percent.

A farmer that adopts these smart farming techniques uses sensors to monitor the conditions in the area where plants are grown, including temperature and humidity as well as the levels of CO2 and oxygen. Data analysis is also a crucial element in smart farming, as the control unit needs to have a reference point to understand and interpret the information collected by the sensors. For instance, if past data indicates that strawberries are the sweetest when they are grown in an environment with a temperature between 20 and 26 degrees Celsius (68 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit), the system will automatically keep the temperature within that range based on the information recorded by the sensors.

The concept of smart farming is still considered relatively new in Korea, where the majority of farmers come from an older generation that are generally less willing to adopt a completely new approach to growing and maintaining crops.

But more people like Choe are giving up their jobs in the city and turning to farming.

According to data from Statistics Korea, the number of people leaving the city to take up farming has jumped from 17,464 in 2011 to 20,559 last year.

Still, the growing interest in farming hasn’t been able to stop the steady decline in the number of farmers. According to the statistics agency, there were 2.96 million farmers in 2011. This number plummeted to 2.5 million by 2016.

“The farming population in Korea continues to fall and age,” said the KREI report. “Farming methods that rely on human labor are reaching their limit, not to mention the shrinking investment in the agricultural sector.”

Even so, Koreans are reluctant to change their farming techniques.

“Most farmers don’t know what to do with the technology even if it’s installed on their farms,” said the report. “This is because, despite advantages such as an increase in productivity and reduction of labor costs, there are no previous models that farmers can follow, or they lack confidence in the effectiveness of smart farming.”

Smart farming in practice

While smart farming is yet to find a home at most farms in Korea, it has already been put into practice in other parts of the world. 

Even back in the early 2000’s, major farms in the United States began to use automated trackers and machinery to more effectively prepare their fields with less manpower. More recently, the level of automation has increased, as has the precision of the equipment.

John Deere, the leading agricultural equipment maker in the United States, has included GPS in its tractors and machines for roughly a decade already. The system tracks the movement of the tractors, most of which are automated, and makes sure they don’t cover the same ground twice, increasing the efficiency of the automated system.

Monsanto, an American multinational agricultural and biotechnology company, is another leader in the industry that’s trying to bring new technology into agriculture in the United States.

One of the new areas that the company has dived into is the field of data science.

Yong Gao, the director of corporate engagement Asia and Africa for Monsanto and president of Monsanto China, told the Korea JoongAng Daily during an interview in Seoul on Aug. 17 that data science can be used in farming to optimize the size of the yield.

“If we can get all the factors [that maximize production] and optimize the function of crop yield [which combines factors such as the genes of plants, environment and farming practices with other variables], then we can maximize the yield,” Gao explained. Data science enables the analysis of these factors. 

Gao provided analysis of historical weather data as an example, explaining that accumulated data on weather during the farming season can help farmers predict weather patterns that might affect their crops in the future.

Nearly 200 million acres of farms in the United States have adopted Monsanto’s climate field-view platforms, according to company data.

Investors don’t shy away from putting their money on smart farming start-ups in the U.S. either.

In May this year, a U.S. agriculture group AeroFarms raised more than $34 million from investors around the world. The company runs indoor farms which are stacked vertically to maximize space. They grow produce such as lettuce using aeroponics, which is the process of growing crops in a misty environment without using soil. 

The Korean situation

There are, however, home-grown start-ups that are trying to spread smart farming in Korea.

Farmpath, an agriculture tech company based in Daejeon, offers the most common smart farming solution to Korean farmers.

One of its services, titled FarmNavi, collects, analyzes and controls the setting of greenhouses via hardware such as sensors. The monitoring is done through a farmer’s smart device or a kiosk that’s installed near the greenhouse. The system uploads the data into a cloud system provided by the company and the accumulated data is analyzed and compared to the information gathered from other users in order to optimize growth and maximize yield.

Jang Yoo-seop, a computer-programmer-turned entrepreneur, started the company in 2011 after realizing that there was a dearth in new technology in the agricultural industry.

“I was asked to create a software program that can manage a farming cooperative with some 60 farmers,” explained Jang. “But there was no request for software updates from the cooperative, which made me realize that the industry is essentially in a rut when it comes to technology.”

Jang’s parents, who had worked hard to raise livestock for nearly four decades, were heavily in debt. This led him to realize that farmers need to adopt new technology so that their labor is not wasted.

Jang also realized over the years that even with an improved yield, farmers are not compensated properly because of the way agricultural products are commonly sold in Korea. Normally, a farmer sells crops by box to a middle man. The middle man puts them up for auction at markets around Korea, which means the price that they pay the farmers can fluctuate greatly depending on demand, which also varies by region.

For this reason, Jang decided to help farmers keep track of their produce.

Agrisys was developed for this purpose. The system gathers all the data relating to a farmers produce, including where the crops were produced and how much they were ultimately sold for. Over the years, the system can even estimate the going rate of products and recommend where crops are likely to fetch the highest price at certain times of year.

Agriculture in the city

While Jang’s company bet on adding technology to traditional farms, Leo Kim of n.thing decided to develop a whole new approach to growing plants.

His business model begins with a simple and small pot, where herbs such as basil are grown. While the pots look small, they are topped with various sensors that monitor the condition of the plants inside. 

“We call it the smart pot, equipped with sensors that can track the moisture in the soil and the temperature, as well as other factors crucial to the growth of the plants,” Kim explained. 

Kim’s company started in January 2014 with the seed money his team earned by winning an award at a start-up competition sponsored by Google. He was given an opportunity to pitch his company in London. Five minutes into his pitch, he had already received an offer from a British company to invest $150,000.

He took these pots to the next level and created a complete farming ecosystem in a shipping container. This container, which provides farmable space equivalent to 1,322 square meters, is equipped with not only sensors but also LED lights and temperature controllers. n.thing sold the container farm to a company in Denmark in August.

“There are needs overseas for this type of farm because it allows people to grow vegetables even in the middle of a city,” said Kim. Demand for his container farms comes from countries such as the Middle East and Singapore as well. Ultimately, Kim envisions anyone living in a city will be able to grow their own vegetables using these plants.

Plant food from fish

Manna CEA, a startup based in Jincheon, North Chungcheong, has been developing a farming ecosystem that defies climate change.

The company adopted an aquaponics system for its farms, which relies on fresh water fish to produce bacteria that plants can feed on. 

“Manna CEA has improved proven aquaponics production methods by developing proprietary technology that controls the levels of macro and micro nutrients,” said the company spokesperson. 

The system, according to the company, uses 90 percent less water than traditional farming systems while nearly doubling the yield. It is also pesticide free, which has became a major issue among Korean consumers after the recent contaminated egg scandal.

Manna CEA has raised over $13 million in venture capital, according to company data. 

There are, however, hurdles to jump over for tech companies hoping to operate in the local agriculture sector. 

One of the important tasks is to raise awareness among farmers that they need to change their methods in order to increase productivity, even against unfavorable conditions such as natural disasters.

Since a number of free trade agreements were signed with countries such as Chile and the United States in recent years, the quantity of imported agricultural products has nearly doubled. The total in 2004 stood at about $14.5 billion. The figure catapulted to about $30.5 billion by 2015.

Local farmers are unable to cope with natural disasters and other unfavorable conditions, leading to a fall in production. As a result, the production of locally grown products dropped over the years, causing imports to increase. For instance, the market share of homegrown carrots has fallen below 50 percent with the fall of production in Korea. “The production of carrots plummeted due to [unfavorable weather conditions such as] the heavy rainfall in September, 2004 and typhoons in 2007 and 2012,” said Ji Sung-tae, a senior researcher at KREI. “This led imported carrots to take the bigger share of the pie in the domestic market.” 

“The dynamics of farming are changing rapidly,” said Kim of n.thing. “For instance, most strawberry farms in Indonesia had to close down because they could no longer grow strawberries because of climate change. Modern farming must be able to cope with such changes.”

There is also a lack of technological understanding among senior officials.

“A lot of information technology companies put their foot into the industry but end up leaving because of a lack of government support, which tends to lean more toward spending money for hardware,” explained Jang of FarmPath. “But software to control the hardware is equally - if not more - important because software programs allow this equipment to react properly to farming conditions that can often change.”

BY CHOI HYUNG-JO [choi.hyungjo@joongang.co.kr]

Enoch Ashley's Analysis of The Indoor AG Industry

Enoch Ashley's Analysis of The Indoor AG Industry

September 2017                                                   Volume 1    

Introduction

Following a summer of explosive growth, many investors, engineers, and farmers are asking themselves “What is next?” in the indoor ag industry. There is a predicted 31.6% compound annual growth rate for the vertical farming market for 2017-2025. Although there has been much speculation about the long-term industry growth, it is fitting to first look at what exactly unfolded during the summer of 2017, and why so many industry professionals are acknowledging that the momentum is irreversible.

Domestic Trends (US)

The story dominating most headlines was the massive $200 million investment into the commercial indoor farming startup, Plenty backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund and Amazon Founder, Jeff Bezos among others. Bezo’s investments didn’t stop with Plenty after Amazon purchased Whole foods for $13.7 billion. This is consistent with Bezo’s strategy of streamlining the monopolization of retail marketplaces in the United States by consolidating the supply chain infrastructure from indoor farms directly to the grocery stores to bring unbeatable prices to the market. This was made evident by Amazon reducing Whole Food’s prices by 43% on its first day. Food retailers and meal kit companies such as Blue Apron are expected to continue downsizing in response to Bezo’s aggressive entrance into a industry. Blue Apron’s fledgling IPO saw a stock drop of 12% after Amazon filed for a trademark application for meal kits. On the East Coast in Brooklyn, Kimbal Musk, brother of Elon Musk raised over $5 million seed funding for Square Roots, the Brooklyn-based indoor farmer training program and container farm.

International Trends

The indoor agricultural revolution continued to make waves around the world beyond the United States. China, recently approved new types of genetically modified corn to be imported into the country. This marks a major cultural shift as the population is slowly accepting these technologies to address their food needs of their growing population. This trend is expected to thrust investment funding into the Asian superpower as indoor agricultural is looked upon as a viable solution. The middle East felt shockwaves after the UAE banned much of the produce grown in their neighboring countries. Former US National Security Council Director for N. Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and now consultant for Middle East governments, David Scott, commented, “In the event of a global food crisis, those kinds of locations would be just as likely to stop the export of food as any other." South Korea is now building a $10 billion agriculture city in Egypt. The countries investing in indoor agriculture now are not just being sustainable, but are making defensive investments as the water wars continue to ravage the Middle East.

Reflection

The Forbes Agtech summit in Salinas, California highlighted major trends in the agricultural industry. Computer vision startups utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence are experiencing impressive funding rounds that automate the historically haphazard process of diagnosing plant health. Consumers have an insatiable desire for transparency after the recent exposure of fraudulent practices of business’ accredited as being USDA certified as Organic.

Solar-Powered Bike Sharing Farm Is A Mobile Community Garden For The City (Video)

Solar-Powered Bike Sharing Farm Is A Mobile Community Garden For The City (Video)

Kimberley Mok (@kimberleymok)
Design / Urban Design
August 17, 2017

© People’s Industrial Design Office

Our long love for the bicycle extends beyond the two-wheeler itself, spilling over into bike-powered inventions, electricity-generating gyms, even whole buildings designed around the bike.

Seen over at Designboom and created by the People’s Industrial Design Office -- the design arm of Beijing firm People’s Architecture Office -- during a three-day design hackathon in Seoul, South Korea, the Bike Share Farm is a solar-powered and bike-propelled mobile hydroponic garden, inspired by the bike sharing concept. The idea was to bring plant life to the citizenry, the designers say:

Seoul is a massive vertical city with minimal garden space. Mobile farms can make shared urban farming possible in such a dense megacity.

Bike Share Farm has been made with mobility in mind. Using off-the-shelf components, a portable hydroponic system with a series of zigzagging tubes forms a frame into which two different bikes can be slotted as the mobile garden travels from place to place. The hydroponic system's irrigation mechanisms are powered by a series of photovoltaic panels.

The Bike Share Farm is a prototype attempts to tackle the issues highlighted during the hackathon of how to "[share an] eco-city with technology." While there may be finer details to work out (such as factoring in how long it will take the plants to mature before harvesting), one could almost imagine a mobile garden like this bringing 'instant' fresh green produce to food deserts or neighbourhoods lacking community gardens. An intriguing idea as well as a powerful symbol of food security and human-powered mobility; see more over at People’s Industrial Design Office.

Chinese Consumers Increasingly Seek Organic

Chinese Consumers Increasingly Seek Organic

As the Chinese pay more attention to food safety, customized farm produce, grown without using pesticides or fertilizers, is attracting growing interest from well-off urban consumers, especially the young.

The Internet is assisting supply-side reform in agriculture. Customers can rent a piece of land online and choose which varieties of vegetables they want to have grown there. Many farms have cameras so that customers can monitor the growth of their produce on their mobile phones or computers.

"This not only ensures green food, but also offers an opportunity for our family to enjoy pastoral scenery during our free time," said Xu Li, a Changchun resident.

"Our fruit and vegetables are all organic. We adopted a membership model for the sale and delivery of produce to our clients," Chen Zhao, general manager of Chunjiangyan farm in Nongan County, Changchun, said at the 16th China Changchun International Agriculture and Food Fair, which closed Sunday.

The farm has 47 vegetable and fruit greenhouses and 1,000 members. Each day, more than 100 Changchun residents receive vegetables delivered from the farm, according to Chen.

The Chinese government has required a deepening of supply-side structural reform in agriculture, improving of the sector's structure, the promoting of green production and innovation, and the extending of the sector's industrial and value chain.

According to a report released last year by Ali Research Institute affiliated to e-commerce giant Alibaba, China had 65 million "online green consumers" in 2015, 15 times as many as in 2011, showing a strong growth in demand for organic produce.

Read more at news.xinhuanet.com

Rooftop Farms In Gaza Provide Lifeline To The Community

Rooftop Farms In Gaza Provide Lifeline To The Community

August 17, 2017  |  by Greg Beach

Meeting even basic needs in Gaza can be a challenge for the nearly 2 million people that live in the territory’s 141 square miles. Under Israeli blockade, which prevents vital supplies from reaching Gaza and inhibits international trade, the Palestinians living there rely on resilience and innovation to survive with the resources they have. Squeezed out of arable land, many Gaza residents are farming upwards, on the rooftops of the dense urban Mediterranean territory.

Rooftop farming is fairly new in Gaza. Starting in 2010, an urban farming project by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization equipped over 200 female-headed households with fish tanks, equipment, and supplies to build and maintain an aquaponics growing system, in which fish provide both edible protein and fertilizer for vegetables with roots growing into water, without soil. This initial design was adapted by others to suit their available resources and needs. The current model, designed and built by Palestinians, involves recycled plastic and wood being used to create garden beds, which are then planted with seeds from local farmers.

The growing rooftop farming scene in Gaza is helping to met the needs of a population increasingly threatened by food insecurity. However, a garden is often more than simply the food that it produces. “There are many useful benefits with this project,” said Dr. Ahmad Saleh, an agricultural consultant, former professor, and community organizer who is helping to promote urban farming in Gaza. “Rooftop agriculture enables and empowers people. It allows them to find effective ways to confront environmental problems and helps create a healthier population.” Muhyeddin al-Kahlout, a former school director, sees his gardens as a social gathering spot. “We are experiencing severe power shortages and there is already a scarcity of recreational places,” he said. “Many of my friends liked the idea. Now they are starting to think about doing the same on their rooftops.”

Via Sondos Walid/Electronic Intifada

Meet Farmlab.One, The Latest Indoor Farming Experiment From Germany’s Largest Retailer

Meet Farmlab.One, The Latest Indoor Farming Experiment From Germany’s Largest Retailer

By Michael Wolf  |  August 14, 2017

While we haven’t arrived at a future where every corner grocery has an in-store farming system with rows and rows of produce, it isn’t for lack of trying.

This is especially true for METRO Group, Germany’s largest retailer, who has been experimenting with in-store farming since early 2016.

The First InStore Farm in Europe**** The first of its kind farm in the METRO Supermarket in Berlin. Delicious greens grow 365 days a year InStore In full transparency and by demand. 

That’s when the retailer launched Kräuter Garten (herb garden), the first retail in-store farming installation in Europe. The technology for METRO’s first foray into vertical farming was provided by INFARM, a vertical farming startup based in Germany. Since the launch of  Kräuter Garten in Berlin, other retailers such as EDEKA (Germany’s largest grocery store chain) have since taken an interest in in-store growing.

Now METRO is at it again, launching another vertical farming experiment with Farmlab.one, a joint project between the retail giant and Schmiede.ONE, a German innovation lab focused on future business models that intermingle agriculture and cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The project will be managed by James Lindsay of Schmiede.ONE in an indoor lab in Düsseldorf. METRO has provided resources in the form of indoor farming racks from TowerGarden, the indoor farming division of Juice+. The project is starting with three crops to start, which you can watch here via Periscope.

While the project is a modest one, it’s a sign of continued interest in vertical, in-building farming by a large food retailer. In the US, we’ve seen growing interest in solutions from companies like Farmshelf, and just last month we saw one of the biggest investments ever in a vertical farming startup when Jeff Bezos, among others, invested $200 million in stealthy startup Plenty.

A comparison of yields and resource consumption of indoor vs. soil-based farming. Source: Schmiede One

While it’s unlikely that in-store vertical farms could produce at the scale to meet the total demand for fresh produce purchased at a high-volume urban retail storefront, it’s clear that soilless vertical farms produce at a much high rate of productivity compared to soil based farming, which means much less overall space is needed to produce the same amount of produce. With such high yields, one can envision a future where a mix of in-store grown produce combined with other warehouse grown urban farmed food could be enough to meet a large percentage of overall demand for fresh produce.

While we haven’t arrived at a future where every corner grocery has an in-store farming system with rows and rows of produce, it isn’t for lack of trying.

This is especially true for METRO Group, Germany’s largest retailer, who has been experimenting with in-store farming since early 2016.

The First InStore Farm in Europe**** The first of its kind farm in the METRO Supermarket in Berlin. Delicious greens grow 365 days a year InStore In full transparency and by demand. 

Which Country Is The Most Sustainable?

Which Country Is The Most Sustainable?

The Food Sustainability Index (FSI), developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) with the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN) Foundation, ranks countries on food system sustainability based off of three pillars: food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, and nutritional challenges.

“A food system does not sit in isolation, and a large number of stakeholders act together according to dynamics created by specific drivers,” say researchers Francesca Allievi, Marta Antonelli, and Katarzyna Dembska, who worked on the Food Sustainability Index with the BCFN Foundation. This causes increasing complexity at the regional, national, continental, and global level, they explain. Trying to assess the interaction among its parts creates a high level of these creating a high level of uncertainty when trying to assess the interaction among its parts.”

Released in 2016, the FSI aims to encourage policymakers to place food and its production issues as high-priority items in their policy agendas. BCFN has since released two Food Sustainability Reports: “Climate Change and Famine: Issues at the Heart of International Awareness,” which focused on climate change, food security, and food safety; and “Environmental, Food and Migration Sustainability: Three Challenges To Overcome Together,” raising awareness about crucial issues surrounding food and sustainability. Both reports were a joint effort between BCFN and the Milan Center for Food Law and Policy.

According to the FSI, The world population is projected to reach 8.1 billion by 2025. Ninety-five percent of this growth will come from developing countries, many of which are dealing with the double burden of hunger and rising obesity. Meanwhile, climate change is presenting new challenges to the agriculture sector. By highlighting performance of different countries and identifying best practices, the index establishes a comparable benchmark for leaders around the world to reference and measure their progress in establishing a sustainable food system.

The FSI is publicly available. Data can be accessed in the form of a map or a country ranking, and the full dataset can be downloaded. Through this approach, the FSI can serve as a tool for policymakers and experts to take action, students to be educated, and the public to adjust their behavior for the well-being of our health and our planet.

“The objectives of the FSI are not only to highlight the performance of countries, but to establish a comparable benchmark, to offer examples of best practices at the national and city levels, and to measure progress over time,” say the researchers.

The index analyzed the 20 countries in the G20, which maintain the largest economies and contain two-thirds of the global population, as well as five nations from regions otherwise unrepresented, using 58 different indicators to measure sustainability. FSI identified France, Japan, and Canada as the top-scoring countries. The top score earner, France, maintains a holistic policy response to food waste and nutrition issues. For example, French supermarkets are required to donate excess food and tax incentives are in place to discourage unhealthy food consumption.

Fixing Food, a white paper released with the FSI, advises developing countries to use institutional and infrastructure reform to improve sustainable agriculture practices. “Including more transparent land rights, greater access to finance…and stronger infrastructure for storage, transport, and logistic, can promote greater efficiency,” write authors of the report. Policy options to address nutritional challenges include public education campaigns, tax measures on unhealthy foods, and restrictions on junk food advertising to children.

The EIU and BCFN Foundation also developed City Monitor, a city-level database and evaluation tool for urban food systems. City Monitor applies sets of quantitative and qualitative indicators, such as child obesity rates and quality of urban farming initiatives, to assess urban food systems.

Together, City Monitor and the FSI provide city and national-level benchmarking tools to help leaders take action on food production, nutrition, and food waste issues. “Progress will be measured over time by updating of the FSI in the next years through new inputs, feedbacks, and new focus of research,” say the BCFN Foundation researchers.

Alesca Life Is Creating Urban Solutions That Is Transforming The Farming Production

Alesca Life Is Creating Urban Solutions That Is Transforming The Farming Production

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Alesca Life Technologies Dubai Municipality MoU signing. Photo credit: Courtesy of Alesca Life Technologies

• 03-Aug-2017
•  Samuel Wendel, Forbes Middle East Staff

Stuart Oda isn’t your average farmer. As the 32-year-old explains it, “I’m a former investment banker turned urban farmer.”

Oda is CEO of Alesca Life Technologies, a Beijing-based agricultural technology startup that creates software-enabled crop growing facilities designed for urban farming. “We build weather-proof, cloud-connected farms that enable food production by anyone, anywhere,” says Oda.

One such “anywhere” is Dubai. Oda is eyeing the U.A.E. as Alesca Life’s first major expansion opportunity outside of its primary market in China, where he and two co-founders formed the company in 2013.

Back then, the founders spied an opportunity to innovate the agriculture industry in emerging markets by using new technology. “There’s a lot of opportunities for us to improve everything from access to highly nutritious foods all the way to food security,” says Oda.

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Stuart Oda, CEO of Alesca Life Technologies

Alesca Life primarily takes old shipping containers and turns them into miniature, automated farms. It outfits containers with hydroponic systems that allow crops to be grown using fewer resources.

As a result, its container farms use between 20 to 25 times less water than traditional agriculture, says Oda. It also uses less fertilizer and is pesticide free.

Simultaneously, Alesca Life cuts down on labor costs by automating most of the growing process using software. It relies on sensors inside the containers to monitor the crops, and the operation can be controlled remotely through a smartphone app.

Alesca Life’s container farms are designed to be embedded in buildings or other unused spaces in high-density urban areas. Oda markets the technology to clients such as hotels, restaurants, supermarket chains and food distributors.

In addition to saving resources, Alesca Life’s technology allows clients to reduce their logistics costs. Rather than transport produce into the city from rural areas, clients can grow fruits and vegetables in the center of major metropolitan areas. “To give them the capability to produce food locally, we believe it would be quite transformative for their business,” says Oda.

He sees potential in the U.A.E. for a variety of reasons. For starters, Dubai is a cosmopolitan city home to a thriving tourist industry, which creates a demand for a large mixture of fresh produce. “The variety of cuisines that exist [in Dubai] is enormous,” says Oda. These cuisines require a wide range of ingredients, many of which are not produced in the U.A.E.

As a result, the U.A.E. is a major importer of food—and it’s not alone. Across the Gulf, food imports are expected to rise in each country over the next three years; overall food imports are projected to grow to $53 billion in the Gulf by 2020, according to a research paper by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Many types of the imported produce could be grown onsite in Alesca Life’s container farms. “Anything you can imagine, from Italian herbs to the simplest sprouts and micro-greens,” says Oda. “These are typically things that are imported from Europe.”

The company first put down roots in the Middle East last year through the Dubai Future Accelerators program, where it was one of 30 companies to make the cut out of nearly 2,000 that applied to the government-backed startup accelerator. During the 12-week program Oda was introduced to potential local partners and clients in the Gulf. “It essentially allowed us to see if the technology had value in the region, which we were convinced it did,” says Oda.

The program culminated with Alesca Life signing a memorandum of understanding with the Dubai Municipality to be its strategic advisor.

According to Oda, Alesca Life is currently in the final stages of signing contracts with clients in the U.A.E. He declines to reveal client’s identities until after the deals are completed, but notes they’re talking to both public and private sector players. Oda is also reaching out to potential customers in Saudi Arabia.

In China, over the last six months Alesca Life has served clients such as Mercedes Benz and the hotel group Hotel Jen. Oda is currently exploring expanding into Europe and southeast Asia as well, an objective which he hopes to achieve within the next 12 months.

As a result, these days Oda spends more time flying than he does tending to his crops. He’s on pace to take 60 flights this year—or one flight about every six days.

Back in the U.A.E., Alesca Life isn’t the only one exploring agricultural innovation; local companies such as Landex Group and My Green Chapter, to name a few, are also addressing urban agriculture.

My Green Chapter, which caters to environmentally conscious Emirati consumers looking to grow their own food, is an online platform selling all manner of products designed for urban farming, from indoor growing kits to chicken coops.

“We believe urban farming will contribute very well to the U.A.E.’s agricultural industry,” says Jean-Charles Hameau, the company’s founder.

On a global scale companies such as Freight Farms, PodPonics and Growtainer in the U.S are pursuing technology similar to Alesca Life’s. It was a market opportunity that Oda came upon nearly six years ago, back when his office was in the corporate world rather than on a farm.

At that time Oda worked for Dell in China. Born in the U.S. and educated at the University of California Los Angeles, Oda started his career in investment banking working for Merrill Lynch in Tokyo before moving to Dell in 2011.

There he was tasked with mapping global mega-trends in emerging markets to see how—as Oda phrases it—“the challenges of today become the opportunities of tomorrow.”

It was through this he stumbled on the idea that led to Alesca Life. Although Dell was exploring opportunities in emerging markets from a personal computing angle, it got Oda thinking about global challenges that could be addressed by technology in general. One of the areas that caught his attention was agriculture.

He poked around and discovered that access to fresh produce can be a major challenge in emerging markets, with limiting factors such as agriculture’s reliance on land, logistics and climate.

He saw an opportunity for innovation. “From a market size perspective, it [agriculture] was exciting,” says Oda.

Others were exploring the problem too, doing things such as using weather data to optimize field crop production.

They’re part of a precision farming market that is expected to double in size from $3.2 billion in 2015 to $7.8 billion by 2022, according to India-based market research firm Markets and Markets.

Oda became convinced there must be tremendous opportunity in trying to improve the efficiency of agriculture by making it more data driven.

Still, it took Oda awhile to gather the courage to leave his job and jump headfirst into entrepreneurism. Ultimately, a sense of urgency overwhelmed him. “The opportunity isn’t available for very long,” says Oda.

He teamed up with two co-founders, Kazuho Komoda and Young Ha, to start the company in August 2013. Oda knew Komoda from his days working in investment banking in Tokyo, and Ha also worked at Dell in China (Ha has since left the company).

Then came the real challenges. For one thing, none of the founders were farmers by training. They also had to self-fund the venture in the early days.

Old shipping containers become miniature, automated farms.

They began by studying everything from plant biology to nutritional chemistry, while simultaneously tinkering with the software and technology. Slowly they began to develop a prototype. “It took a while,” admits Oda, with a laugh.

Early on they traveled to a port city in China, where they bought a secondhand shipping container. They refurbished it and insulated it, and then embedded their hardware—all of which was designed by the company. The resulting container was sheltered from air, water and soil pollution.

They developed the smartphone app to give the farm manager the ability to monitor all environmental parameters in the containers.

Once the container was built, Alesca Life’s team got down to the business of planting and growing crops.

The company scored its first client in 2014. Boasting a functioning product, Oda then turned his attention to fundraising and spreading word about the company.

Alesca Life didn’t get its first outside investment until the first prototype container was built and operational. Its earliest investors were friends and family. Oda recently closed a round of funding for more than $1 million, but he can’t disclose the investors yet. To date the company has secured seed funding and angel investments, although Oda won’t reveal the total amount raised.

Last year, Alesca Life competed in the 1776 Challenge Cup, a global startup competition. Although it didn’t win, through it Oda was recommended to the newly created Dubai Future Accelerators program, leading Alesca Life to apply, also last year.

Oda is now focusing his efforts on expanding Alesca Life into new markets, one of the first of which has been the U.A.E. In Dubai, Alesca Life is currently looking for ways to localize the manufacturing of their containers, as well as preparing to set up an office, where Oda plans to hire everyone from industrial designers to horticulturists.

Although it has planted a seed in Dubai, there are other challenges that may face the company as it expands, one of which is regulation. For the moment, Oda thinks the regulatory environment is quite friendly in Dubai.

Winning over consumers is another issue. In China, it has taken time to convince consumers to accept produce grown in new ways, rather than by traditional methods. So far, that hasn’t been a major issue in the U.A.E. either, at least not yet.

Another problem is growing different types of crops profitably. Some crops can be grown quite profitably in Alesca Life’s containers, while others cannot. It’s an issue Alesca Life’s team hopes to squash as they continue to tinker and refine their technology.

Challenges aside, Oda is adamant that it’s the right time for innovation in the agriculture industry. And in Dubai Oda thinks he’s found an opportunity ripe for the picking.

7 Offbeat Urban Farms Found Around The World

7 Offbeat Urban Farms Found Around The World

by Lyna Vuong • August 10, 2017

Urban farms are popping up all over the world as more communities are gaining interest in growing their own food as a way to address access, boost local economy, and spark conversations around our food systems. There's something magical about starting a seedling, tending to its growth, and harvesting it from the earth to eat. These days, you don't necessarily need soil or lots of space to grow food, as new ways and technologies to grow it are developed.

Below, we highlight seven ingenious and unexpected community farms. Now, how can we incorporate something similar into our own neighborhoods?

Brussels' UFU sightings: Urban Farm Units Photo by Designboom

Shipping containers are repurposed into all sorts of uses now. In Brussels, Damien Chivialle created one into an Urban Farm Unit, or UFU. The shipping container was designed with a greenhouse roof extension, and the entire unit has the ability to move and live wherever there is space. Hyrdoponictechnology is used to grow fresh vegetables to supply local residents or restaurants, and act as a public educational garden space.

Denmark's Impact Farm would be our go-to hangout if we were nearby Photos by Human Habitat

Design firm Human Habitat takes a similar lead in Denmark, but they refurbished a shipping container into a two-story timber greenhouse. This zero-waste, pop-up project is called Impact Farm, and produces two to four tons of fruit and vegetables a year using solar energy (it can also be disassembled for relocation). The structure serves as a farm hub, cooking space, food venue, and educational workshop. The ground floor is used as multipurpose work and community recreation space. We can't imagine a better way to maximize this kind of square footage.

Public Farm 1 was the iconic structure at PS1's 10th annual summer music event series Photo by Raymond Adams

PF1's farm canopy and play space Photos by Elizabeth Felicella

PF1 was a temporary art installation at MoMA's PS1 during the summer of 2008. We think it was a wonderful idea to turn a cultural destination into a community play space that incorporated food. Aside from being an impressive sculpture, it was a place that provided refuge from the sun and hosted farmers' markets. This innovative urban garden used recyclable cardboard tubes to grow vegetables, offer solar-powered cell phone charging stations, and pools of water to cool down with.

A lush oasis among N.Y.C.'s skylines Photo by Brooklyn Grange Farm

Brooklyn Grange may be the world's largest rooftop soil farm that spreads across two roofs in New York City, growing 50,000 pounds of organic food per year. They also keep more than 30 naturally-managed honeybee hives on roofs dispersed across the city. Although it is a rooftop farming and green roofing business, Brooklyn Grange hosts educational programming, offers consultation, and nonprofit partnerships that promote healthy communities.

So far, 26 lawns have been converted into lush vegetable patches through Fleet Farming Photo by Inhabitat

Fleet Farming is a community effort that rallies volunteers and cyclists to transport food Photos by Fleet Farming

Okay, Fleet Farming isn't necessarily an urban farm, but it is a principle that can be implemented in any community, including urban environments. This Orlando, Florida-based initiative is the modern neighborhood victory garden. Think about all of those empty, grassy front yards that require fertilizers and maintenance, only to not be used. This organization transforms lawns into vegetable gardens. Community members can opt to rent their front lawns and host a fleet farm. All of the produce is available for homeowners and the surplus produce is then sold at local farmers' markets or restaurants within a five-mile radius.

In Japan, urban farms find new homes in train stations Photo by Machinaka Saien

There are rooftop community gardens spread all over Japan's train stations known as Sorado Farms. East Japan Railway Company has planned to build community gardens on top of, or near, each of its stations. If you're waiting for a train, why not get your hands a little dirty? Community members are able to purchase fresh seasonal produce or rent their own plot of land to grow their own food.

Just one of the elements of Dublin's Urban Farm initiatives Photo by Dublin Globe

Urban Farm is Ireland's first rooftop farm located in Dublin. The farm stems from being an educational project to promote sustainable living, urban agriculture, cooking, and food sharing within their community. The Urban Farm aims to make growing food a more approachable subject for people to incorporate into their everyday lives. A few noteworthy programs include: ThankPotato, where 180 different heritage and heirloom varieties are grown in upcycled water coolers; Urban Oyster, which is a community outreach program that teaches people how to grow mushrooms and compost from used coffee grounds; and Social Hops engages the community to collaborate and grow their own hops to reduce carbon emissions from importing hops, encouraging locals to develop their own craft brews.

Do you know of any inspiring urban farms here or around the world? Share them with us in the comments.

Urban Farms: Projects From Around The World

Urban Farms: Projects From Around The World

By: Henry J. Schumacher

AUGUST 6, 2017

As social entrepreneurs find novel ways to make agriculture an integral part of urban life, I would like to share 10 innovative approaches with you from around the world:

 

Philippines: Quezon City Vice Mayor Maria Josefina “Joy” Belmonte’s campaign, “The Joy of Urban Planting”

The city currently has 68 farms of various sizes found in barangays, public-elementary schools, day-care centers, parishes and non-governmental organizations. The city works with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Agriculture, which provide financial grants. Even if city farmers fail to bring their items to market, urban farming is still a win-win situation. “If they don’t produce [enough] for selling, as long as they can eat their products to decrease the issue of malnutrition, it’s already a triumph,” Belmonte said.

GrowUp Box, London, UK

Kate Hofman and Tom Webster are giving new meaning to the phrase “box lunch” with their reinvented shipping container, the GrowUp Box.
Inside the 20-foot container, tilapia are farmed in tanks especially designed to ensure there is enough room for fish to grow, while on top, greens are cultivated in vertical columns. The water from the tilapia tanks circulates through the columns, where the fish waste provides nourishment to about 400 plants. The fish and greens are sold to area restaurants.

The project’s parent company, GrowUp Urban Farms, consults with people looking to build their own boxes and is set to start building the first commercial-scale aquaponics farm in London, Hofman said. http://growup.org.uk/#%21for-schools-and-universities/c1v6f

Beacon Food Forest, Seattle, Washington, US

The Beacon Food Forest in Seattle is turning a piece of public land into an edible forest garden. Residents will be welcome to forage in the forest, a 7-acre plot­—adjacent to a city park—featuring fruit and nut trees, a pumpkin patch and dozens of berry bushes. The goal is to mimic a natural ecosystem, creating a space that requires less maintenance and offers higher yields, cofounder Glenn Herlihy says. http://www.beaconfoodforest.org/

Farmery, North Carolina and TBA, US

Benjamin Greene, founder of the Farmery, plans to make the journey from farm to store more efficient by eliminating it almost entirely.

The Farmery is an 8,000-square-foot market with food shopping on the lower level and mushrooms, greens and fruits growing on the upper level. Whatever is not grown on site will be sourced locally. http://www.thefarmery.com/

Sky Greens, Lim Chu Kang area, Singapore

Singapore, one of the most densely populated nations in the world, has little room available for farming. So inventor and entrepreneur Jack Ng created the Sky Greens system to grow more food in less space. Think of it as a plant skyscraper.

The equipment holds up to 32 trays of greens—including lettuce, spinach and a variety of Asian greens—on a tall, narrow A-frame structure. The plants slowly rotate, as if on a Ferris wheel, so each tray gets sufficient exposure to sunlight.

Sky Greens harvests and delivers vegetables to Singaporean markets every day. http://www.skygreens.com/

Brooklyn Grange, Brooklyn, New York, US

The Brooklyn Grange comprises two and a half acres of growing space high atop a pair of office buildings. “We’re looking at ways to increase food production without increasing agricultural footprint,” Spokesman Anastasia Plakias said.

The operation grows more than 50,000 pounds of food each year, which it sells through farmers’ markets, CSA subscriptions and wholesale accounts. In addition to boosting New York City’s local food supply, the farm also absorbs more than 1 million gallons of stormwater every year, reducing the load the city’s systems must manage. www.brooklyngrangefarm.com

Deu Horta Na Telha, São Paulo, Brazil

After 30 years of building urban gardens in São Paulo, agricultural technician Marcos Victorino started running out of cultivable land.

As part of his research work at local college Faculdade Cantareira, he designed a way to turn roofs, balconies and paved areas across the city into miniature farms. Victorino turns large roof tiles upside down, creating a long, V-shaped trough that can be filled with soil.

These tile beds are elevated, making them easily accessible to children and the handicapped. Because the tiles are watertight, they hold in moisture, allowing growers to make the most of an increasingly limited water supply.

Prinzessinnengarten, Berlin, Germany

The Prinzessinnengarten is an urban farm nestled in the shadow of the former
Berlin Wall, between unused subway stops, graffitied concrete walls and aging apartment blocks. Inside vine-covered fences grows a wide range of vegetables, all planted in easy-to-move containers—recycled Tetra Paks, rice sacksand plastic crates—that allow the entire operation to be moved if needed. Visitors can pick vegetables, learn about seed harvesting and vegetable pickling, or visit the café to enjoy snacks made from the garden’s produce. http://prinzessinnengarten.net/about/

Urban Organics, St. Paul, Minnesota, US

Located in a building formerly occupied by a commercial brewery, Urban Organics is an aquaponics operation that provides salad greens and fish to grocery stores and restaurants using just 2 percent of the water of conventional agriculture. Founder Fred Haberman, CEO of Minneapolis marketing agency Haberman, hopes the for-profit farm will prove the commercial viability of aquaponics and help spur economic development in the area. “If we can do that, I believe you’ll see more of these types of facilities popping up,” he said.  http://urbanorganics.com/

Lufa Farms, Montreal, Canada

The goal of Lufa Farms in Montreal is to create a “local food engine”, says the company’s greenhouse director Lauren Rathmell.

At the heart of the operation are two sprawling rooftop greenhouses—currently totaling 1.75 acres—that produce a range of vegetables: greens and herbs, peppers and eggplants. The produce is packaged with locally sourced goods like handmade pastas, fresh bread and dark baking chocolate, and delivered to approximately 4,000 customers each week. https://montreal.lufa.com/en/

Comments are welcome; contact me at hjschumacher59@gmail.com.

Farming Module Provides Locally Produced Food All Year Round

By Thomas Tapio  Press Release  2017-06-22

Farming Module Provides Locally Produced Food All Year Round

A new, unique solution enables profitable ecological cultivation in urban environments

Exsilio, a Finnish enterprise, has developed a high-tech solution for cultivating salad and herbs, among others, in urban environments. The solution comprises a renovated container, where ecological local food can be cultivated efficiently. “Our solution is ideal for example for restaurants and institutional kitchens wanting to produce their own ingredients. The modules also serve as an excellent option for farmers to replace their traditional greenhouses with”, explains Thomas Tapio, CEO of Exsilio.

The 13-metre long farming module, known as EkoFARMER, is a unique market novelty. The unit forms a closed system, which needs only electricity and water to function. This means that the level of humidity, water, and carbon dioxide can be controlled efficiently in order to produce the optimal yield and the best possible flavour. Unlike the majority of other similar systems, EkoFARMER does not use any other nutrients than the ecological cultivation soil developed by Kekkilä.

Exsilio is currently on the lookout for co-operation partners who are interested in developing the farming modules further with the enterprise. In addition to restaurants and farmers, Tapio also envisions various other prospective user groups for the modules.

“EkoFARMER is an excellent option for business fields in need of salads, herbs or medicinal plants, for example. The social aspect of urban farming is also prominent. For this reason, our solution is suitable for associations wanting to earn some extra income, or societies wanting to offer meaningful activities for the unemployed, for example. This is an opportunity to create new micro-enterprises”, says Tapio.

The module can be placed almost anywhere, it does not occupy much space, and it is also transferable.

Making horticulture profitable in urban environments can be challenging, but according to Exsilio’s calculations it is still possible, if the execution is efficient enough. “Our module can produce approximately 55,000 pots of salad per year. The yield will be at least three times the amount produced in a greenhouse, since the cultivated plants are located on multiple floors. Therefore, plants can be cultivated all year round and the cultivation period can be shortened, as the amount of light and humidity can be controlled perfectly.”

The final price of the modules has not yet been determined, but according to Tapio’s calculations, it is likely to be slightly over 100,000 euros. The enterprise has also developed a leasing model, which allows customers to use EkoFARMER with a monthly payment of a few thousand euros.

More information:
Thomas Tapio, CEO, Exsilio, +358 44 9809682
www.ekofarmer.fi
www.exsilio.fi

How Change Happens: Inspiring Examples from Urban Food Policy

How Change Happens: Inspiring Examples from Urban Food Policy

Many of us in the world of food policy are excited by what is happening in cities. Hundreds of municipalities are developing and delivering policies to improve the food system. Fortunately, extensive efforts to document them means we know a considerable amount about what they are doing—a whole host of activities, including improving public procurement, building greenbelts to address climate change, training organic gardeners, enabling rooftop gardens, innovating strategies to reduce food waste and improve food safety, cutting down on trans fats, introducing soda taxes, eliminating marketing in sports stadiums, and tackling food insecurity.

We know a lot less, though, about how cities are managing to do all this. When change—especially policy change—can be so extraordinarily difficult, how have cities actually made it happen?

This was the question behind a new report released this week from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). Looking in depth at four cities—Nairobi (Kenya), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Detroit (USA), Amsterdam (the Netherlands)—and one city-region, the Golden Horseshoe (Canada), the report explores the nuts and bolts of policy making. Based on interviews, it shares the insights of people who have made urban food policies happen, so that others can make food policy happen in their cities, too.

Our findings? Cities are undoubtedly innovators in food policy but that this innovation happens through often quite mundane processes. It’s not always exciting; it happens mainly behind the scenes, but it matters a great deal for getting stuff done.

In Nairobi, for instance, we uncovered the fascinating story of how urban agriculture went from being perceived as a blight on the city to an asset that is positively promoted by the Nairobi Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act 2015. What brought about this U-turn was the sustained efforts of civil society to unify and amplify the voices of urban farmers and to build supportive relationships with national civil servants.

In Detroit, we found that, through the 2013 Urban Agriculture Ordinance, the city had moved to regulate and support burgeoning urban agriculture activity, which has been putting vacant land to use and bringing fresh food to many neighborhoods. It did this through an inclusive process involving the urban farming community as well as planning professionals, and negotiations with state-level farm interests overcame a major legislative barrier.

In the city region of the Golden Horseshoe around Toronto, Canada, we found a healthy alliance of people from across the food system implementing the ten-year Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Plan to support the economic viability of the sector. How did they manage to agree on a common plan between many different actors, professions, and potentially conflicting interests? The key was a drawn-out drafting process with skilled mediators going back and forth to reach consensus-wording that meant the same to everyone.

In Belo Horizonte, we found a policy to tackle food insecurity that has been in place for more than 20 years. What lay behind the longevity of this policy was undoubtedly its early institutionalization within city government, while civil servants have worked behind the scenes to uphold the core principles, particularly through changes in municipal government.

In Amsterdam, we found a relatively new policy that promotes integrated working between city departments to address the structural causes of obesity. What enabled this integrated working was requiring each department to identify ways to address obesity through its day-to-day work. Moreover, to demonstrate that obesity is not just a public health matter, initial responsibility for the program was given not to the Public Health Department but to Social Development, instead.

Cities are doing a lot. They are identifying, leveraging, and growing their powers where necessary. They are engaging across government, involving communities, civil society, and food system actors, finding innovative ways to fund themselves and working hard to gain the political commitment needed for them to last. What we now need far more of is monitoring, evaluation, and learning. Cities are aiming to transform their food systems, no less. To do so, we need to know more about where they are having an impact, what the impact is, and what can be done better. A better understanding of the pathways to positive change will help show, even more, what urban food policy can do to change the food system and where it can have the most impact.

Click Here To View The Full Report

Lettuce That’s Head and Shoulders Above The Rest: Real Dirt

Lettuce That’s Head and Shoulders Above The Rest: Real Dirt

Quality soil is the secret to Greenbelt’s irresistible, award-winning lettuces.

Ian Adamson, president of Greenbelt Microgreens, and head grower Alice Farris show off their totally organic lettuces that have won an Agri-food Award of Excellence from the Ontario government.  (SONIA DAY)  

By SONIA DAY | Fri., June 23, 2017

Let us talk about lettuce.

The truth is, I’ve wimped out. I no longer grow any. The likes of Lactuca sativa got banished from my garden, because infuriating intruders kept beating me to the punch.

Caterpillars, earwigs, rabbits, groundhogs, birds, deer . . . They all dropped by. Plus, of course, slugs, scores of those slithery, slimy horrors that sneak in after dark. And chomp, chomp. The next morning, fantasies of fresh salad fixings vanished — faster than ice cream in a heat wave.

There was also the bothersome business of bolting. Just about every lettuce variety I tried went whoosh, like a rocket into space, if the temperature soared suddenly in spring (which unfortunately happens a lot, in our yo-yo climate.)

And although we home gardeners love to kid ourselves that our misshapen, nibbled, less-than-perfect produce is still fine to eat, (because hey, didn’t we grow it organically, from non-GMO seeds?) some just isn’t. Elongated stalks and past-their-prime leaves of a bolted lettuce head taste so bitter, I once spat them out at the dining table.

Yet I love lettuce. And like everyone, I worry about questionable residues left behind on specimens sold at the supermarket. So good news: there’s a new Canadian outfit that produces such tasty, fresh, totally organic lettuce, I have no qualms about not growing my own anymore.

Greenbelt Microgreens came on the scene about a year ago, started by a former landscaper named Ian Adamson. And he’s sure done his homework. Eco-conscious himself, he decided to figure out exactly what modern consumers would like to see in salad greens — and the results certainly push all the right buttons.

Greenbelt’s lettuces (plus pea greens and a variety of microgreens) are grown locally in greenhouses, like so much of what we eat today. Yet they’re not hydroponically raised, with chemical nutrients added to the water around the roots. Instead, these lettuces develop in their own individual small pots filled with soil — just like out in the garden. Does that make flavour better? I think so.

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

2017  |Arable,Crops and Cereals,News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These 5 Technologies Are On The Verge of Massive Breakthroughs

These 5 Technologies Are On The Verge of Massive Breakthroughs

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

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

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

CREDIT: Ellise Verheyen

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

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

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

1. Noninvasive Biopsies

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

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

2. Precision Farming

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

3. Sustainable Design of Communities

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

4. Deep Learning For Visual Tasks

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

5. Harvesting Clean Water From Air

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

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

Why A Peanut Farmer From South Carolina Created A Facebook For Farmers

Why A Peanut Farmer From South Carolina Created A Facebook For Farmers

OCTOBER 2, 2015 LAUREN MANNING

As a nasty nor’easter hammers the Southeast, hurricane Joaquin lingers just off the Atlantic coast guaranteeing many more days of torrential downpour. For Pat Rogers, a fifth-generation peanut farmer running a 550-acre operation in the small town of Blenheim, South Carolina, the rain is unwelcome.

Peanuts, which grow underneath the topsoil, have to be dug up and flipped over to lie on the soil for a week so they can dry out. The last thing any peanut farmer wants to happen after a “dig up” is rain—let alone the one-two punch of a massive storm and a hurricane.

In prior years, Rogers would have been short on opportunities to commiserate with his farming colleagues about the cruel hand Mother Nature doled out. Thanks to a spark of inspiration and a whole lot of hard work, however, Rogers is hoping to change that for himself and other farmers in the business—and he’s using technology to do it.

“I was at the InfoAg conference in St. Louis during 2014. It’s just a whole bunch of farm tech and I was sitting there in the earliest session, looking around, and thinking, ‘This is great!’” says Rogers tells AgFunderNews. “But, the thing about farming is that so much of it is very rural. It’s not like we can all get together and network very often.”

Rogers returned to Blenheim and quickly set to work creating a way to make invaluable coffee shop chatter, tailgate talk, and barnyard business exchanges a lot more accessible for farmers far and wide. What was one of the first sources Rogers tapped to shape his plan? Entrepreneur Eric Ries’ famous book, The Lean Startup.

Over the summer, Rogers and a team of web developers soft-launched a website called AgFuse, a social media platform dedicated to farmers, and designed to help professionals across the agriculture world connect, share tips, show off their crops, pitch products, and keep in touch. Operating in a similar way to Facebook, with a healthy dose of LinkedIn’s business networking savvy, users can create a profile page, join groups, post messages, and peruse their news feeds to see what’s happening with other farmers in their network.

Building AgFuse’s website from the ground up enabled Rogers and the web development team to create algorithms that help members see the information that’s most relevant to their interests, operations, and needs.

While farm-focused message boards provide a flood of information, AgFuse is calibrated so that users only see postings and information from other members with whom they’ve connected.

For now, the crew is satisfied with its current algorithms, perfecting them is a routine objective. “We have a pretty good system that we are rolling out over the next week or two,” says Rogers.

After observing the soft-launch site and getting feedback from initial users, Rogers, and the AgFuse team, officially launched the site on July 22, 2015. While the platform became an instant hit with Rogers’ local community in South Carolina, he quickly saw users join from around the country and engage with other members.

AgFuse, which Rogers has fully funded himself, has even caught the attention of some venture capital investors. “In the future, that’s hopefully not only a possibility but a reality. Right now we are just focused on building a good product and building our user base,” he says. He also hasn’t ruled out the possibility of monetizing the site to provide members with carefully curated advertisements.

Rogers’ current priorities include site enhancements and building up its user base. They also have some big projects in the works, including a mobile app that is in the final stages of development, and additional AgFuse platforms focused on consolidating farmers’ knowledge around the globe.

According to Rogers, AgFuse is the first farm-centric social media platform of its kind. Although there are a number of message boards dedicated to farming and agriculture topics, he felt they weren’t cutting it when it came to helping farmers make real connections.

“If I sign in from South Carolina and they are talking about crop conditions in Illinois, that doesn’t really pertain to me,” explains Rogers. “You can still learn a lot of general things, but AgFuse’s specific niche is helping farmers find a specific audience.”

Traditional social media platforms haven’t provided a good solution either, tending to involve more talk about play and less talk about business. AgFuse, according to Rogers, is strictly a business affair.

“The content can range anywhere from somebody wanting to show off a good series of coverage crops, to showing a scouting report or weather reports. Somebody just showed a picture of armyworms they found in their soybeans to let everyone know they’ve shown up,” says Rogers.

Although the rain may have dampened Rogers’ hopes for a timely peanut harvest, it’s given him time to work on AgFuse and check in with some of his connections on AgFuse. Today’s news feed was full of reports from other farmers in the region lamenting the weather, with one farmer posting a few pictures of cotton sprouts popping through his plants’ bright white cotton lint—a sure sign that the crop has become oversaturated. Although the news may be a downer, knowing you aren’t the only frustrated farmer in the region has its value.

While agtech is making incredible headway toward helping farmers produce food more efficiently and sustainably, AgFuse is a good reminder not only of the infinite possibilities for technology’s role in agriculture but of how technology can go a long way towards bringing people together.

Urban Farming As An Integrational Factor for The Municipalities

By Thomas Tapio  Blog 

Urban Farming As An Integrational Factor for The Municipalities

Our modern society is facing many poverty related social, nourishment and health related issues as well as economical challenges that must be solved in order to maintain our wellbeing and democratic life style. Both individuals and different organisations can experience temporary critical times when extra incomes matter.

EkoFARMER offers opportunities for micro-entrepreneurship that augment the social status of unemployed persons, an extra income for active associations and an turn-key entrepreneurial bridge for businesses that want to expand their business.

More information:
Thomas Tapio, CEO, Exsilio, +358 44 9809682
www.ekofarmer.fi
www.exsilio.fi

The 'ekofarmer' by Exsilio Is A Pop-Up Urban Farm For City Streets

The 'ekofarmer' by Exsilio Is A Pop-Up Urban Farm For City Streets

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have fresh, locally grown produce, from the comfort of a city?  it’s no surprise that urban farming has become popular in recent years, with city slickers attempting to grow fruits and vegetables in backyard gardens, on rooftops, or even indoors using hydroponic systems. while all of these solutions are only possible on a small scale, finnish start up exsilio oy is making urban farming possible for whole cities with their modular pop-up farms. just as pop-up shops or cafes, the ekofarmer pod be easily set up in the middle of town, sprouting cost effective crops to grow fresh food for everyone. 

images courtesy of exsilio oy

branded as a ‘resource-efficient urban farming chamber,’ the ekofarmer combines high-tech solutions with the easiness and safety of locally produced healthy and clean ecological food. the 13-meter long module forms a closed ecosystem, which needs only electricity and water to function. the levels of humidity, water and carbon dioxide inside can be adjusted to produce optimum yield and the best possible flavor. the neat little module is carbon-neutral, transferable, and can be placed almost anywhere without taking up a whole lot of space.

the shipping container-shaped chamber enables restaurants, businesses owners and small-scale farmers to use efficient and profitable urban farming methods. exsilio oy estimate each module can produce approximately 55,000 pots of salad per year–around 3 times more than the amount that could be produced in a greenhouse, since cultivated plants are located on multiple floors within the farm. 

farmers can use the module to grow their own choice of herbs, salads, seedlings, and even non-food plants. ‘our solution is ideal for example for restaurants and institutional kitchens wanting to produce their own ingredients,’ explains Thomas Tapio, CEO of exsilio. ‘the modules also serve as an excellent option for farmers to replace their traditional greenhouses.’

beatrice murray-nag I designboom     jun 27, 2017