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VIDEO: What's In The Bag: Zoomin' Along
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Look Out For The Farm. One Electric Vehicle on NYC Streets!
We're sure you won't miss it. We're saying goodbye to gas for good with this all-electric car. With this new mode of transportation, we'll be able to expand our local delivery range and keep our zero-carbon footprint deliveries. We'll continue to deliver by bike, foot, and public transportation!
New Innovations – Lettuce Wall at Newtown College
The eye-catching addition of the lettuce tower in the Newtown College foyer is part of the Crop Cycle project, a Farm Urban system to cultivate lettuce and other greens using a soilless system of vertical towers. This project is funded by the Welsh Government to introduce indoor growing CEA of food crops into communities.
NPTC Group of Colleges
23 June 2021
Newtown College (Part of @NPTCGroup of Colleges) is going all green-fingered as it introduces a new Horticulture course. This exciting new addition has brought with it a new collaboration with Cultivate, and a new initiative with the introduction of a lettuce wall to the Newtown College Foyer.
The new Level 1 & 2 Horticulture courses will be available from September. The course will utilize the fantastic facilities of Cultivate to do practical work, including accessing polytunnels, allotments, and projects within their grounds include growing via CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture).
The eye-catching addition of the lettuce tower in the Newtown College foyer is part of the Crop Cycle project, a Farm Urban system to cultivate lettuce and other greens using a soilless system of vertical towers. This project is funded by the Welsh Government to introduce indoor growing CEA of food crops into communities. Whilst we live in a rural environment, new ways of nurturing plants, using what is known as hydroponics, is revolutionary and is growing in popularity.
Cultivate are piloting a number of different controlled environment vertical farming systems to grow hyper-local nutritious crops to offer within the community. Local, sustainably grown food is absolutely key in tackling important issues surrounding our food system, climate change and biodiversity. This will allow Cultivate food business to increase the amount of local foods produced and in turn, consumed, ensuring that growing models become more sustainable and that our population can eat more locally grown, sustainable, healthier produce.
Richard Edwards Cultivate Crop Cycles project manager said:
“They taste great, are highly nutritious and are super fresh, visit our Deli in Newtown to try them for yourself!”
NPTC Group of Colleges Head of Agriculture, Catering, Hospitality and Horticulture, Sue Lloyd-Jones said:
“We are very excited about introducing the Horticulture Courses to Newtown College. These courses are already popular in our Brecon Beacons, Neath College and Black Mountains Colleges. With this fantastic collaboration with Cultivate, it gives us extensive facilities and involvement with initiatives such as the CEA. The lettuce wall provides a point of education for students to learn about potential food sustainability and the subtle shift toward urban or hyper-local cultivation. It demonstrates how to grow plants without soil but in nutrient-rich water with oxygen and light. It also serves as a local edible wall producing greens for our catering department’.
How A Malaysian Company Born During The Pandemic Is Championing Harvest-To-Table In Kuala Lumpur
The brainchild of founders Shawn Ng, 28, and Sha G.P., 27, The Vegetable Co. aims to deliver fresh greens within three to four hours after harvest to their customers in various parts of Klang Valley
27 June 2021
BY KENNY MAH
Harvest-to-table vegetables have arrived in Malaysia, courtesy of The Vegetable Co. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
PUCHONG, June 27 — The vegetables we eat and where we get them from can be a quagmire of questions: Is it organic? Local or imported? Is it safe? Is it fresh?
Getting your daily intake of healthy greens shouldn’t be this stressful, I reckon.
Enter The Vegetable Co. This fledgling harvest-to-table startup was launched early last year and is based on sustainable vertical farming concepts and in-house, customized technology.
The Vegetable Co. founders Shawn Ng (left) and Sha G.P. (right). — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
The brainchild of founders Shawn Ng, 28, and Sha G.P., 27, The Vegetable Co. aims to deliver fresh greens within three to four hours after harvest to their customers in various parts of Klang Valley.
Quality is a major differentiator. Ng explains, “Our vegetables are meant to be better than what’s available in the market due to their freshness and growing method. The indoor farming method ensures that they are delicious and pesticide-free while still reaching optimal size, taste, and nutritional value.”
Through their Controlled-Environment Agriculture farming method, the startup has devised and built an indoor, environment-controlled chamber that saves significantly on land and water consumption.
This indoor environment approach differs from conventional farming practices as they grow vegetables utilizing LED lights, vertical stacks, hydroponic systems, and environmental control to keep the internal atmosphere at an optimal constant that encourages optimal plant growth.
Ng adds, “The chamber is also an isolated environment, which prevents external contaminants from entering and as such mitigates the need for pesticide usage. Basically, we are farmers in lab coats, or plant scientists. Our aim is to grow food in the best possible environment to get the most nutrition and freshness onto your table.”
As with many startups, The Vegetable Co.’s overall ambitions and strategy are heavily influenced by the founders. The duo first met when they were doing their A-levels, and have been friends for well over a decade.
This meant they understood each other’s strengths and differences — Sha has a BSc in Economics from The University of Manchester while Ng received a Masters in Green Management and Sustainability from the University of Bocconi in Italy — and how best to complement each other.
Ng recalls, “Since college, we have always been young idealists who spent countless nights debating on the many ways in which we could contribute to the nation’s development. Generally, Sha is always pragmatic in nature, while I’m a bit of an optimist who dreams of a better future for the Malaysian people.”
Therefore, unlike many businesses that are driven solely by profit making, the two friends started their venture due to their burning need to drive change in a significant and tangible manner.
A sense of purpose was crucial, as Ng observes: “We both had work experiences prior to this, and they never fully aligned to our overarching goals and principles. By working on the business, we were given the opportunity to pursue and craft our own paths forward.”
But why vegetables?
Loyal customers have the 2015 film The Martian to thank. Ng explains, “It really intrigued Sha as the astronaut had to find a way to grow food in an extreme environment to survive. He began considering whether it could be feasible and commercially viable in the Malaysian context. He approached me with the idea, and the rest is history.”
Assembling their team was another piece of the puzzle they had to solve early on.
Ng says, “One of our most important hires remains our first farm operator, Bryan Lee. We hired him back in late 2019 when he was 19, and he has been with us since. Combining his love for plants with his mechanical and electrical engineering skills has made him essential for the work here, especially during the early stages.”
Plenty of care is taken in growing the vegetables, with the latest vertical farming technology. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
The Vegetable Co. also has an in-house Research & Technology team — comprising young Malaysians below the age of 30 from varying backgrounds — working to optimise their automated systems, fit-for-purpose farm designs, as well as the quality and nutritional value of their produce.
That last attribute, Ng notes, is a crucial factor to market acceptance: “Our customers can smell the fragrance of the basil when they first open the box. This, combined with the springiness of our lettuce, really drives a good impression on people.”
The key to the freshness of their produce lies in their harvest-to-table approach, typically within a three- to four-hour window.
Ng explains, “Our intention is to move away from mass industrial agriculture and long supply chains. Research has shown that vegetables travelling far distances tend to lose nutritional value over time, some as fast as within 48 hours. There are also the concerns of food waste, as a third of all food stuff is usually discarded in the beginning, generating methane through open decomposition and exacerbating climate change.”
A typical subscription box contains seven types of freshly harvested vegetables. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
As a result, The Vegetable Co. strives to grow within 20 kilometres of high populated districts within the Klang Valley, such as Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Subang, Puchong, and Shah Alam.
In doing so, Ng claims this will help preserve the maximum nutrients possible, cut down on transport emissions and increase transparency as they minimise the number of unknown variables between the farm and the consumers.
He adds, “During the past year, we also observed interruptions in supply and knee-jerk reaction price hikes due to inter-state logistical issues associated with Covid-19 restrictions and we believe our solution helps address these challenges by farming right in the middle of population centres.”
By growing in vertical stacks within urban areas, The Vegetable Co. purportedly mitigates around 95 times the land use through conventional farming methods. In the future, the duo also plans to activate unused urban spaces to further increase land use efficiency.
Given the constraints of each individual farm being able to only service a certain radius around it, The Vegetable Co. will leverage both localisation and decentralisation to scale up in a sustainable manner.
Ng explains, “The modularity of our farms enables us to install farms in every urban centre where there is demand. This is how we envision the growth of our company and the vertical farming sector here in Malaysia.
Sounds like a reasonable and promising business model, no? But as any seasoned entrepreneur would tell you, the journey is never a smooth nor swift one.
The Vegetable Co. was self-funded by the two co-founders at the beginning. Ng says, “We really had to dig deep into our coffers and commit all our resources into the start of the company — scraping for whatever savings or equipment we have in order to make things work.”
Harvesting time. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
Beyond a startup tendency to stay lean and agile, part of the scramble came from launching the business barely a month before the first movement control order (MCO) last year. Initial plans for pop-up booths and taste testing as a market education tool were immediately shelved.
With only a small number of early adopters, they decided to focus solely on promoting their subscription model. Ng explains, “This was what truly appealed to our first base of customers — those who were concerned about regular access to freshly-grown produce without needing to brave the supermarkets or fearing a shortage of supply.”
That gamble paid off handsomely as revenue grew by 300 per cent in the first few weeks alone. Both co-founders realised that customer satisfaction and confidence were critical for pushing the product to market, and have since made it part of their company promise: To reduce the time and distance for quality produce to reach their customers.
“Customers who took the chance on us in the early stages could immediately tell the difference,” Ng says, “From there the product sold itself by word-of-mouth. The popularity of the subscription service drove demand and allowed us to expand and to increase our capacity as we prepare for the launch of our next phase in July.”
Packing the just-harvested vegetables into subscription boxes. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
Since then, the duo has gotten the support of an angel investor as they expanded their operations. Ng adds, “Although we have no immediate fundraising plans, we’re looking at raising a bridging round sometime Q3/Q4 this year to continue our business expansion and technology consolidation.”
Part of that expansion would include gradually doubling the number of their produce variants as production capacity increases. Currently The Vegetable Co. has about 10 variants; a standard box comes with about seven variants, making every delivery a little surprise, not unlike CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes.
The Vegetable Co. aims to deliver fresh greens within three to four hours after harvest to their customers. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
According to Ng, by having fresh vegetables delivered to them on a frequent basis, many of their customers have changed their diets for the better: “Some of our customers have taken to snacking on our veggies and moving away from the bad habit of eating junk food. Fundamentally, we are in the business of encouraging healthy habits and lifestyles.”
Are vertical farming and vegetable subscription boxes the future of our dining tables? It is early days yet but The Vegetable Co. certainly makes a strong and admirable case for Malaysian harvest-to-table.
To borrow from a classic jingle: Any fresher and you’d have to pick these greens yourself.
The Vegetable Co.
Lead photo: A typical subscription box contains seven types of freshly harvested vegetables. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
Web: thevegetable.co
How To Grow Food In A Concrete Jungle
Building flourishing farms in the heart of cities used to be just a utopian fantasy. Now it's an important step towards developing a smart, diversified food system capable of feeding a growing world population.
Editor’s Note: The vertical farming industry continues to evolve as more operators come online. The diversity of operators and crops being grown will allow for new products to go to market and provide the consumer with fresher choices for their shopping carts. Agritecture’s client, Agricool, is one of many CEA operators leading the way.
BY DALIAH SINGER
Building flourishing farms in the heart of cities used to be just a utopian fantasy. Now it's an important step towards developing a smart, diversified food system capable of feeding a growing world population.
Guillaume Fourdinier has lived in Paris for six years, but he still misses the taste of the fresh cereal grains, beets, carrots, and more that grow on his family's farm in Verton. There, in northern France's countryside, eating locally is a way of life – not simply a trend or a sticker on an apple at the grocery store.
“Local food is everywhere when you are in the countryside. You get fruits and vegetables with better taste, more nutritional value,” he says. “When you are in Paris, what is local food? There is nothing coming from a local farm. I think for quality of life for people living in big cities this is a big problem.”
In 2015, Fourdinier co-founded Agricool, an urban farm that's now comprised of 11 recycled shipping containers on the north side of the city. Eight farmers plant, harvest, pack, and deliver the pesticide-free lettuces, herbs, and strawberries to 60 supermarkets (though Fourdinier expects that number to grow to at least 200 retailers by the end of 2021).
mage sourced from BBC
Urban farms like Agricool are part of a broad collection of metropolitan agricultural efforts including everything from vertical farms to greenhouses to aquaponics to community gardens. The idea of cultivating food in or near cities is not new (see the victory gardens of both world wars, for example), but these ventures have become increasingly popular in recent years as the local food movement strengthens. After the rise of the supermarkets led many people to feel disconnected from food production, consumers are again paying more attention to how and where their food is grown, along with how far ingredients must travel between field and plate.
From Brussels to Nigeria, entrepreneurs and farmers are reimagining what farms are and conceiving innovative technology to help grow food in smaller spaces and in more sustainable ways. They're attempting to fix existing food supply chain concerns, which we've all became intimately familiar with in the past year. Images of picked-over grocery shelves and farmers tossing out produce early in the Covid-19 pandemic broadcast the failures and fragility of our current systems.
By 2050, it's estimated that the global population will balloon to almost 10 billion, and 68% of those people will live in cities. That means we'll have to produce more food than ever before, to feed people who live farther from the rural areas where most crops and animals are cultivated. Bringing production closer to where consumption happens could increase food security, improve our health and lessen the industry's considerable impacts on the planet – if we're able to grow enough nutrient-rich grub, that is.
In the United States, it's estimated that urban and peri-urban farms account for almost 15% of the country's farms. Among them is 80 Acres Farms, a vertical farming operation based in Ohio but which has eight locations in four states, all of which use zero pesticides and require 97% less water consumption compared to traditional farms. (Vertical farming refers to growing crops in vertically stacked layers in a controlled environment, often incorporating soilless techniques.)
Co-founders Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston are trying to push the potential of this multi-billion-dollar industry further. To date, enterprises like theirs have primarily focused on easy-to-grow leafy greens – which won't sustain civilisation on their own – but with advancements in technology Zelkind and Livingston have been able to add more substantial crops like peppers, tomatoes and baby cucumbers. They explain how their farms have incorporated sophisticated technologies in the video below.
80 Acres is a year-round operation that optimises its growing environments based on the plants' genetics, harvests at the peak of ripeness, and relies on a smaller delivery radius to get food to customers within a day of its picking. It's “democratising high-quality food”.
“You can enable people, no matter where they live, to reconnect to the food supply,” Zelkind says.
Image sourced from BBC
Technology has made the duo's goals increasingly achievable – and made indoor farming both more efficient and more affordable. 80 Acres' farms are, on average, 300 to 400 times more productive than field farming, Zelkind says, because the vertical structure creates room for more crops in less space and because the produce grows faster.
At Agricool, which also relies on a tiered growing system, Fourdinier says his containers produce 120 times more sustenance per square meter than in traditional field growing and 15 times more than most greenhouses.
“Ten years ago, this was science fiction,” Zelkind says. “Tomorrow it's going to be so ubiquitous that everybody's going to be doing it and we will think, 'Oh my God, did we really ship our berries 2,000 miles a few years ago?'”
To that end, 80 Acres is commercializing what it's learned through Infinite Acres – a partnership with Netherlands-based horticulture technology firm Priva Holding BV and the UK's online grocery giant Ocado. The project provides the technology, operations help, and necessary infrastructure to help budding farmers and interested municipalities launch their own indoor farms. 80 Acres operates a reference design and demonstration farm in Hamilton, Ohio, that's capable of robotically planting, harvesting, and packaging around 1.5 million pounds (681 tonnes) of leafy greens annually. It proves the “economic feasibility of vertical farming indoors”, Livingston says. “We intend to build a farm like this farm all over the world.”
Which gets to the big question: Can a patchwork of metro area farms actually grow enough to feed future populations?
“To say that it is a solution to all of the ails? No, it's never going to be to me because we don't grow calorie crops in controlled spaces. I think it's a compliment. It can provide resilience on a very local level in that you have multiple [food] sources and you're not relying on just one supply chain,” says Anu Rangarajan, director of the Cornell Small Farms Program, which works to advance the viability of small farms. “It becomes part of a whole platform of food supply.”
In Paris, Agripolis recently opened Nature Urbain Farm on the seventh story of the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Five gardeners currently tend to the tomatoes, strawberries, eggplant, and even butternut squash growing on the world's largest rooftop farm using a closed-circuit, aeroponics system. The facility is only one-third complete, but there will be room for 20 gardeners to harvest up to 1.1 tons (1,000kg) of 35 varieties of fruit and vegetables every day. This surprising farm on a central Paris rooftop is already bearing fruits.
Image sourced from BBC
USA - ALABAMA: Yellow Hammer Farms Opening Birmingham-Based Hydroponic Farm, Market
The farm and market will operate using technology that will be able to provide fresh and affordable produce year-round. A typical farm may be limited to five or six harvests a year for some crops, but Yellow Hammer Farms can have 11 to 12 harvests a year within its climate-controlled environment
Yellow Hammer Farms is opening a new indoor farm near downtown Birmingham. YELLOW HAMMER FARMS
Birmingham will have a hydroponic farm and market starting this weekend.
Owners Frank and Jillian Fitts will open Yellow Hammer Farms on June 18 at 702 Third Ave. N.
The farm and market will operate using technology that will be able to provide fresh and affordable produce year-round. A typical farm may be limited to five or six harvests a year for some crops, but Yellow Hammer Farms can have 11 to 12 harvests a year within its climate-controlled environment.
“From the beginning, our mission has been to bring Birmingham high-quality, locally grown produce," Frank Fitts said. "With so many of Birmingham’s residents living in a food desert, it was vital that we find a location where we could provide everyone a convenient option for affordable, fresh produce. Working in the food and beverage industry, I also saw firsthand the need and desire of restaurants and consumers wanting to purchase local produce throughout the year. So much of the produce that comes to this area travels a long distance. We are hoping to change that.”
The venture began with the Fittses converting an empty warehouse in the Titusville community. The building now is retrofitted with an advanced vertical hydroponic growing system to create a highly efficient, controlled growing environment that uses no soil. Water loaded with nutrients recirculates throughout the system, feeding the plants, while LED lights and a climate control system are overhead.
Crops that will always be on hand include basil, lettuce mix, kale, and other leafy greens and herbs. Other produce will be featured throughout the year, and 20 items will be available on June 18 for the grand opening.
Hours of operation will be Tuesday through Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m
Green Skyscrapers That Add A Touch of Nature + Sustainability To Modern Architecture!
Polish designers Pawel Lipiński and Mateusz Frankowsk created The Mashambas Skyscraper, a vertical farm tower, that is in fact modular!
06/09/2021
Skyscrapers have taken over most of the major cities today. They’re symbols of wealth and power! And most of the skylines today are adorned with glistening glass skyscrapers. They are considered the face of modern architecture. Although all that glass and dazzle can become a little tiring to watch. Hence, architects are incorporating these tall towers with a touch of nature and greenery! The result is impressive skyscrapers merged with an element of sustainability. These green spaces help us maintain a modern lifestyle while staying connected to nature. We definitely need more of these green skyscraper designs in our urban cities!
Zaha Hadid Architects designed a pair of impressive skyscrapers that are linked by planted terraces, for Shenzhen, China. Named Tower C, the structure is 400 metres in height and is supposed to be one of the tallest buildings in the city. The terraces are filled with greenery and aquaponic gardens! They were built to be an extension of a park that is located alongside the tower and as a green public space.
Polish designers Pawel Lipiński and Mateusz Frankowsk created The Mashambas Skyscraper, a vertical farm tower, that is in fact modular! The tower can be assembled, disassembled and transported to different locations in Africa. It was conceptualised in an attempt to help and encourage new agricultural communities across Africa. The skyscraper would be moved to locations that have poor soil quality or suffer from droughts, so as to increase crop yield and produce.
The Living Skyscraper was chosen among 492 submissions that were received for the annual eVolo competition that has been running since 2006. One of the main goals of the project is to grow a living skyscraper on the principle of sustainable architecture. The ambitious architectural project has been envisioned for Manhattan and proposes using genetically modified trees to shape them into literal living skyscrapers. It is designed to serve as a lookout tower for New York City with its own flora and fauna while encouraging ecological communications between office buildings and green recreation centers. The building will function as a green habitable space in the middle of the concrete metropolis.
ODA’s explorations primarily focus on tower designs, in an attempt to bring versatility and a touch of greenery to NY’s overtly boxy and shiny cityscape. Architectural explorations look at residential units with dedicated ‘greenery zones’ that act as areas of the social congregation for the building’s residents. Adorned with curvilinear, organic architecture, and interspersed with greenery, these areas give the residents a break from the concrete-jungle aesthetic of the skyscraper-filled city. They act as areas of reflection and of allowing people to connect with nature and with one another.
Heatherwick Studio built a 20-storey residential skyscraper in Singapore called EDEN. Defined as “a counterpoint to ubiquitous glass and steel towers”, EDEN consists of a vertical stack of homes, each amped with a lush garden. The aim was to create open and flowing living spaces that are connected with nature and high on greenery.
Designed by UNStudio and COX Architecture, this skyscraper in Melbourne, Australia features a pair of twisting towers placed around a ‘green spine’ of terraces, platforms, and verandahs. Called Southbank by Beulah, the main feature of the structure is its green spine, which functions as the key organizational element of the building.
Mad Arkitekter created WoHo, a wooden residential skyscraper in Berlin. The 98-meter skyscraper will feature 29 floors with different spaces such as apartment rentals, student housing, a kindergarten, bakery, workshop, and more. Planters and balconies and terraces filled with greenery make this skyscraper a very green one indeed!
Algae as energy resources are in their beginnings and are seen as high potential. Extensive research work has dealt with algae as an energy source in recent decades. As a biofuel, they are up to 6 times more efficient than e.g. comparable fuels from corn or rapeseed. The Tubular Bioreactor Algae Skyscraper focuses on the production of microalgae and their distribution using existing pipelines. Designed by Johannes Schlusche, Paul Böhm, Raffael Grimm, the towers are positioned along the transalpine pipeline in a barren mountain landscape. Water is supplied from the surrounding mountain streams and springs, and can also be obtained from the Mediterranean using saltwater.
Tesseract by Bryant Lau Liang Cheng proposes an architecture system that allows residents to participate in not just the design of their own units; but the programs and facilities within the building itself. This process is inserted between the time of purchase for the unit and the total time required to complete construction – a period that is often ignored and neglected. Through this process, residents are allowed to choose their amenities and their communities, enhancing their sense of belonging in the process. Housing units will no longer be stacked in repetition with no relation whatsoever to the residents living in it – a sentimental bond between housing and men results.
In a world devoid of greenery, Designers Nathakit Sae-Tan & Prapatsorn Sukkaset have envisioned the concept of Babel Towers, mega skyscrapers devoted to preserving horticultural stability within a single building. The Babel towers would play an instrumental role in the propagation of greenery in and around the area. These towers would also become attraction centers for us humans, like going to a zoo, but a zoo of plants. Seems a little sad, saying this, but I do hope that we never reach a day where the Babel Tower becomes a necessity. I however do feel that having towers like these now, in our cities, would be a beautiful idea. Don’t you think so too?
USA: DENVER, COLORADO: Is Urban Farming The Next Big Condo Trend?
Lakehouse is home to a 3,000-square-foot urban farm, from which residents can pluck herbs and lettuce for dinner
May 17, 2021 | By: LX Collection
Judy Weingarten doesn’t live in a rural cottage, but in a newly opened condo at Lakehouse in Denver. Aside from the perks, you might expect from a development like this—70-foot lap pool, yoga studio, elegant residents’ lounge—Lakehouse is home to a 3,000-square-foot urban farm, from which residents can pluck herbs and lettuce for dinner.
Photo Credit: Lakehouse
“I love looking out my window at the garden, contemplating what vegetable I am going to have with my dinner tonight,” Weingarten says. “I enjoy trying new recipes based on what is harvested at the time, as well as having fresh-cut flowers throughout the summer!”
The Condo with Its Own Urban Farm
Flourishing with green beans, poblano, oregano, carrots, and eggplant, Lakehouse’s raised vegetable and herb beds are overseen by Agriburbia. The company describes itself as “an innovative and growing design movement that integrates aspects of agrarianism with land development.” While Agriburbia oversees planting, irrigation, and harvesting, residents can weigh in on what gets planted—and are encouraged to chip in with the farming too.
Brian Levitt, co-founder and president of NAVA Real Estate Development, which developed Lakehouse, tells LX Collection: “Notices will go out on harvest days inviting residents to come to the harvest room and help themselves. They are able to cull herbs from the farm for their cooking at any time. Crops are also used for community events and cooking demonstrations.”
In 2020, Lakehouse’s urban farm turned over 1,600 pounds of produce. That’s enough to provide almost four Americans with their vegetable quota for the entire year.
The Growth of Condo Gardens
Outdoor space is increasingly desirable for potential condo buyers, and while this partly stems from the pandemic and the demand for residential space en plein air, the trend began before 2020 and made outdoor space a precious commodity.
Innovative outdoor spaces have been finding their way into condominiums for years. Sky gardens have shot up from London to Ho Chi Minh City. Courtyards, lawns, and pergolas are now commonplace. In New York City, condos like 70 Charlton and 565 Broome maximize greenery with living walls. Architects and designers are looking at every last inch of space, asking, “could this be a garden?”
Until now, designers of these spaces have focused on aesthetics and creating outdoor entertaining areas, but a movement in growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs is now underway. You can see it in the sheer number of articles and explainer videos showing how to grow microgreens on the windowsill or dwarf apple trees in patio containers.
In response, some new condo developments are sowing the seeds for a genre of urban gardening where edible produce is grown and harvested in a community environment.
Ambitious Plans in Europe
In the Netherlands, a particularly ambitious urban farm concept is in the offing. MARK Green Vertical Village is a proposed complex of three towers in the city of Utrecht. Taking its inspiration from the traditional Dutch villages in the area, plans for this Vertical Village show roofs with greenhouses growing the likes of tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and apples. These year-round gardens would be owned and operated by a collective of farmers and financed by inhabitants of the 1,128 apartments via a monthly service fee. An on-site restaurant and area residents would also have access to harvests.
As with Lakehouse, MARK’s residents needn’t dig for their supper: “Participation is encouraged but not vital to the food production,” says Darius Reznek, a partner at Karres en Brands, the firm behind the plans.
But vertical villages face steep challenges. The biggest, says Reznek, is competing with traditional and industrial farming practices on cost and yield. “The farming concept/system needs to have additional benefits,” Reznek says, “community spaces, community building, soundproofing.”
While MARK is on track for completion by 2025, the urban farming aspect of it remains up in the air: “It is a vital part of the entire concept but currently under feasibility studies,” explains Reznek. He is in no doubt that a condo garden like this can happen—and be self-sustaining, too—but in the first instance, it requires an initial financial investment.
An Enhanced Sense of Community
Lakehouse’s success shows that baby steps will get you places. And while its urban farm doesn’t produce enough crops to feed residents at every meal, Brian Levitt explains it has already grown something else in abundance: community spirit.
“Our goal was to create an enhanced sense of community through education and access to good food that is grown on-site,” says Levitt. “It provides a way for residents to come together either to help in the garden or to cook together in the collaborative kitchen and outdoor grills.”
Reznek agrees that community farms and gardens sow the seeds for healthy relationships, as well as sustainability: “Common spaces are the places that tie these communities together,” he says, “where you meet your neighbors, get to know them, and are more likely to share things such as food, energy, and space.”
The urban condo farm isn’t a trend just yet. But Lakehouse is a beacon of what can be achieved, while MARK Green Vertical Village is an ideal of what might.
As residents seek sustainability, wellbeing, and community in their daily lives, expect to see the green shoots of more urban farms appearing in condos near you.
Lead Photo: Photo Credit: Chuttersnap
Natalie Portman, Other Celebs, Invest In Vertical Farming Startup Bowery
The sustainable agriculture startup, the largest vertical farming firm in the U.S., secured over $300 million from both individuals and investment groups to help expand its operations across the U.S.
$300M Investment Round Will Help
The Company Expand Its
Indoor Farms Across The U.S.
June 4, 2021
Natalie Portman | Roy Rochlin / Getty Images
Natalie Portman, an actor as well-known for her film roles as her dedication to causes ranging from the environment to animal welfare, has thrown her financial support behind a new investment round for Bowery Farming. The sustainable agriculture startup, the largest vertical farming firm in the U.S., secured over $300 million from both individuals and investment groups to help expand its operations across the U.S.
"At Bowery, we're reinventing a new supply chain that's simpler, safer, more sustainable and ultimately provides vibrantly flavorful produce unlike what's available today," Irving Fain, CEO, and Founder of Bowery Farming, said in a press release. "This infusion of new capital from Fidelity, other new investors, and the additional support of our long-term investor partners is an acknowledgment of the critical need for new solutions to our current agricultural system, and the enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission.
Portman’s investment is the latest in a series of big moves by the vegan activist to help grow companies that provide healthy, sustainable, and animal-friendly products to millions around the globe. In July of 2020, she joined others such as Oprah Winfrey and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in investing in milk-alternative startup Oatly. In November, she teamed with music artist John Legend in backing MycoWorks, a company creating vegan leather from fungus, to help raise more than $45 million.
“So now lots of people make fun of vegans, right? Lots of people make fun of anybody who cares about anything deeply, right?,” Portman said during a youth activism speech in 2019. “But I’m here to say, it is always a great thing to care…whether it’s environmental issues, animal rights, women’s rights, equality, never be afraid to show how much you care.”
Joining Portman in the latest investment round for Bowery, which has raised more than $465 million since its founding in 2014, were well-known plant-based eating advocates Lewis Hamilton and Chris Paul, as well as world-renowned chef and hunger advocate José Andrés and singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake.
Growth of vertical farming reaches new heights
So why is everyone from celebrities to investment groups throwing money at Bowery? Simply put, the skepticism around vertical farming that stunted early growth has been replaced with blooming enthusiasm in the wake of its success.
In the last year, Bowery has gone from selling produce in under 100 retail locations across the U.S. to nearly 800. According to Fain, these include such giants as Whole Foods Market, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Walmart, and Weis Markets.
“It’s definitely bigger than the pandemic,” Fain told The Spoon. “What you’re seeing is a food system that’s evolving and [people have a desire] to see transparency and traceability in the food system.”
Bowery presently has two vertical farming sites in New Jersey and Maryland, with a third slated to open in Bethlehem, PA later this year. Each industrial space features various greens and herbs (butter lettuce, cilantro, arugula, etc.) stacked vertically in trays and grown hydroponically using a state-of-the-art computer control system and LED lights. An average of 80,000 pounds of produce is generated each week using 95% less water than traditional farms and with zero pesticides or chemicals. And because these vertical farms can be built within cities, transport costs and their associated environmental impacts are drastically reduced.
While the focus for vertical farming remains firmly planted on greens, Bowery is testing new crops like tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries. They are also making constant improvements to the artificial intelligence system that monitors the plants at all times. At any moment, the computer can make changes to improve the yield or alter the flavor of a particular crop.
“We achieve a plant vision system and that vision system takes photos of our crops in real-time and runs them through our machine learning algorithms,” Fain said in an interview with Tech at Bloomberg. “We know what’s happening with a crop right now and whether it’s healthy, but then also predict what we will see with this crop based on what we’ve seen in the past and what tweaks and changes we want to make.”
Yes, we know that sounds like some slice of a dystopian future, but vertical farming is quickly proving itself a necessary technology to help feed and sustain humanity. For Fain, he believes the ability to do all of this with fewer resources, chemicals, and independent changing climate conditions or unexpected global crises is something that should be celebrated and not feared.
“I actually view it as this incredibly optimistic opportunity to say, ‘Wow, like, isn't it amazing that technology has taken us to a point where something that we've done in a certain way for hundreds and hundreds of years with iteration and optimization can really be rethought and re-imagined in totality because of human creativity and human ingenuity?", he told MyClimateJourney. “And I think that's actually exciting and that's something that we should be happy about and optimistic about. And that to me is really the message in what we're building at Bowery.”
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When You Plant A Farm In A City, It Tastes Like The Future
“We’ve literally flipped the farm on its end,” smiles Matt Barnard, co-founder and executive chairman of Plenty, “We’ve developed technology to deliver all the things plants need--nutrients, water, climate
By Changing America Staff
June 4, 2021
From the outside, the warehouse looks like any of the other industrial manufacturing buildings you find in this part of San Francisco. But that's just a facade. When you walk in, it's as if you have entered a portal to another world. In fact, that's exactly what it is. Welcome to the future of agriculture.
Instead of a traditional farmhouse, you'll find the sort of office space you'd see at Silicon Valley companies like Facebook or Apple. But keep walking and you'll see the farm. Instead of sprawling fields of crops stretching across acres of Iowa or Illinois farmland, you'll see a space the size of a Target store that resembles a high-tech luxury car assembly line, featuring vertical tubes that sprout two stories tall, each one packed with leafy greens that are lovingly surrounded by thousands of UV lights.
“We’ve literally flipped the farm on its end,” smiles Matt Barnard, co-founder and executive chairman of Plenty, “We’ve developed technology to deliver all the things plants need--nutrients, water, climate. And we do that in ways that are not only efficient but they also allow us to control flavor to an extent that's never been possible before.”
The field hands here look more like astronauts than farmers. They wear what resemble full-body hazmat suits, which help maintain an impeccably strict level of hygiene. This prevents any contamination of the plants, since one of the main selling points of Plenty's produce is that it doesn't use pesticides. As workers bustle about the warehouse with iPads, checking data points that help them engineer perfect bunches of arugula and kale, you might forget you’re at a farm at all--apart from that one employee over there wearing a cowboy hat.
“Things that would normally take years on the farm I grew up on taking just months here," says Barnard. "Yield gains that take a decade in a field, we deliver in a few weeks. There’s no way to do that other than data. This new way of farming has really demanded that we be a data-driven company.”
Plenty's intense focus on data allows it to precisely calibrate its usage of California's most precious resource: water. The Golden State is the leading producer of agriculture in the United States, and consequently, the state with the highest water usage for farming--in fact, 40 percent of all water used in the state goes into agriculture. For the past decade, however, California has been suffering from brutal drought, the driest period in recorded state history. It’s a full-blown crisis that is only getting worse as the planet warms up further.
That's where the genius of Plenty comes in. The obsessive attention to data allows the company to increase the efficiency of its yield and cut down dramatically on the water necessary to grow it. Compared to nearby lettuce farms in Salinas and Yuma, Plenty is saving approximately a million gallons of water per week.
In fact, the company argues that it is as much an infrastructure resource as an agricultural enterprise. Because it grows locally, it ensures nearby residents have delicious food to eat--and jobs to work at--all year round, even in barren food deserts, and even during times of severe supply-chain crises (wildfires, drought, ransomware attacks or, say, a global pandemic).
Because everything happens in an indoor controlled climate, Plenty has no seasons. It can plant, grow and harvest late summer plants like its pristine strawberries every month of the year.
Plenty isn't just growing food, though. “Because we are able to grow 365 days a year, and grow plants that taste like late summer plants all year round, we get to invest in our people," says Barnard. "They’re here as long as they want to be here. It’s not seasonal, we know who’s going to be here next year, everyone gets to grow their income and their careers.”
The company is expanding quickly. They have a contract with the berry giant Driscoll’s to start producing strawberries, and they’re building a second farm in the unlikely working-class community of Compton, south of Los Angeles.
Barnard envisions dozens and eventually hundreds of vertical farms across the country. This is where other countries, especially China, are headed fast and Plenty makes a strong argument that American federal and state governments should start planting the seeds of vertical farms as quickly as possible to avoid falling behind.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out their website, https://www.plenty.ag/, and try some of their famous lettuce next time you’re in the Bay area.
Published on Jun 04, 2021
USA - VIDEO: NYC Students Growing Greens Inside Schools With Hydroponic Farming
Getting access to affordable, nutritious food is difficult for many in New York City who face food insecurity. A grassroots nonprofit organization is changing that with the help of students and hydroponics; CBS2's Jenna DeAngelis reports
Getting access to affordable, nutritious food is difficult for many in New York City who face food insecurity. A grassroots nonprofit organization is changing that with the help of students and hydroponics; CBS2's Jenna DeAngelis reports.
Categories: Education, Environment/Green, News, Local News, WCBSTV, Google
USA - VIRGINIA: Fairfax Hydroponic Farm Expanding, Creating 29 Jobs In Herndon
Beanstalk, an indoor hydroponic farm in Fairfax County, plans to expand its operation, investing $2 million and creating 29 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Monday
Beanstalk Plans To Invest $2 Million In Project
MAY 24, 2021
BY KATE ANDREWS
Beanstalk, an indoor hydroponic farm in Fairfax County, plans to expand its operation, investing $2 million and creating 29 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Monday.
Owners Mike and Jack Ross, brothers from Alexandria, started the business in 2018 and sell fresh salad mixes and fresh herbs to grocery stores and at farmers’ markets. The new facility, to be built in Herndon, will produce specialty herbs and pesticide-free leafy greens year-round with its proprietary hydroponic technology, Northam’s office said in a news release. In 2018, Jack Ross won the state’s STEM Catalyst Award for developing an automated indoor growing prototype, which later led to Beanstalk’s automated production system.
“Fairfax County is the perfect place for a startup like Beanstalk to put down roots and grow their company,” Northam said in a statement. “We are pleased to support a project that blends agriculture, Virginia’s oldest and largest industry, with technology, one of the fastest-growing sectors of our economy. Innovative entrepreneurs like Mike and Jack Ross are demonstrating how STEM fields can help cultivate new techniques like hydroponics that make fresh produce more accessible.”
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) worked with Fairfax County and the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA) to secure the project for the commonwealth. Northam also approved a $100,000 grant from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund, which Fairfax County will match with local funds. The Virginia Jobs Investment Program will support job creation and training at no cost to the company.
“Jack and I are incredibly proud to be developing our technology and growing local produce in Virginia,” Michael Ross said in a statement. “Being ‘Virginia Grown’ ourselves, we are excited to be bringing new technology to the industry and new jobs to our home state.
CANADA: ‘Made In Quebec’ Strawberries Offer Hope For Food Autonomy
The pandemic, with its broken supply lines and closed borders, has been a worrying reminder of Quebec’s dependence on imported food. Roughly 75% of its fresh fruits and vegetables, in fact, come from elsewhere
10-05-2021 | Msn News
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
CANADA- The pandemic, with its broken supply lines and closed borders, has been a worrying reminder of Quebec’s dependence on imported food. Roughly 75% of its fresh fruits and vegetables, in fact, come from elsewhere.
Inside a windowless metal cube in a building on the outskirts of the province’s largest city, Montreal, Yves Daoust is trying to make a dent in those numbers.
The cube houses some 3,800 strawberry plants arranged in vertical gardens, pollinated by bumble bees, and brushed by morning dew. The carefully controlled environment is tracked by sensors and attempts to mimic ideal summer conditions year-round in a city where the average outdoor temperature in January is 13.6 degrees Fahrenheit (-10.2 degrees Celsius) and the winter cold doesn’t let up until May.
When Daoust’s company, Ferme d’hiver -- the name is French for “winter farm” -- started selling batches at C$5.99 ($4.80) a pack at nearby supermarkets in December, the pesticide-free berries were snatched by customers accustomed to Mexican or U.S. produce that often costs a bit less. Now it’s signing up farmers to install the technology and make Quebec winter strawberries viable, helped by C$1.5 million in financing from the government.
Quebec’s history -- it harbors a strong nationalist movement -- has long reinforced a preference for homegrown businesses, but after the pandemic disrupted labor migration and prompted some countries to restrict exports, local sourcing became an urgent matter for the government.
“The pandemic made Quebeckers a lot more sensitive to the importance of supporting local companies,” Agriculture Minister Andre Lamontagne said in an interview. “Every time we increase consumption of Quebec food products by a notch, it has considerable effects on the Quebec economy.”
The government earmarked C$157 million in November to boost food autonomy. In addition, its investment arm, Investissement Quebec, supports individual projects like Ferme d’hiver’s. Two recent projects it financed were greenhouse expansions that together received C$60 million.
The initiative aligns with themes dear to Premier Francois Legault, who was elected in 2018 on a nationalist platform. Quebec, a majority French-speaking province, is protective of its culture and businesses and considers any goods that come from outside Quebec, even from other Canadian provinces, to be “imported.”
Fruits and vegetables aren’t the only problem. Only about half of the all wholesale food purchased by grocers and hospitality companies is grown or transformed locally. To improve that ratio, Quebec is banking on greenhouse production, which it wants to double over five years with C$112 million in aid programs.
Another weapon is state-owned Hydro-Quebec’s cheap and abundant electricity, a key incentive for an industry that requires large amounts of artificial lighting during dark winter days.
© Bloomberg A Strawberry Harvest At Ferme D'Hiver Vertical Farm. The grow room at the Ferme d’hiver.
Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
In Compton, a town two hours east of Montreal, organic vegetable farmer Frederic Jobin-Lawler is modernizing his 36,000 square feet of greenhouse space with a geothermal heating system, a dehumidifying unit and artificial lighting. After subsidies and other aid, he’ll pay only about 40% of the upgrade costs.
Success or failure of the food autonomy effort will depend on whether small farms like Jobin-Lawler’s can overcome grocers’ general preference for large suppliers or whether they can get institutions like hospitals to buy their produce, he said.
“If we produce more in winter, will our local markets be able to take it in?” he said. “We don’t want to do this to export, we want to do this to sell locally.”
In theory, the province produces enough to supply two-thirds of its fresh and transformed greens, but consumption and production don’t match up perfectly. Quebec grows enough cabbage to cover twice over what it eats, so it exports some. But it meets only 17% of its population’s demand for spinach and 44% for strawberries.
Climate and seasonality have a lot to do with it. As a country, Canada imports the most vegetables and fruits between March and June, followed by the December to February months.
Daoust, the founder of Ferme d’hiver, said he offers a tastier substitute. “It’s not that imported products aren’t good originally, but they are treated to be transported for days,” said Daoust, an engineer by training who grew up on a farm but spent most of his career in the tech industry.
Imported Workers
Not everyone in Quebec is persuaded by the government’s push. Patrick Mundler, a professor at Laval University in Quebec City, says a rush to produce more fruits and vegetables risks increasing demand for other imports, chiefly farm labor.
“The massive production model is totally dependent on labor,” said Mundler, who published a paper on food autonomy last year. “Workers come from Mexico, Guatemala -- I have a hard time accepting we use our electricity to produce cucumbers in heated tunnels rather than buy them from Mexico or Guatemala directly, where they grew in the sun.”
If small farmers manage to get their goods onto grocery shelves where a few giant producers dominate, a big question remains whether consumers will get into the habit of buying local.
“The consumer has the last word,” said Catherine Brodeur, a vice president of economic studies at Groupe Ageco, a consultancy in Quebec City. “The share of consumers who want to buy locally and are ready to pay more grows over time. But a lot of consumers buy the product that’s 5 cents cheaper.”
Photo © Bloomberg A Strawberry Harvest At Ferme D'Hiver Vertical Farm
Strawberries are harvested at the Ferme d’hiver.
Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg
Raleigh Shipping Container Farm Using Hydroponic Technology
The technology that Nanue’s Farm uses was created by Boston-based company, Freight Farms. Each container has thousands of LED grow lights, temperature controls and uses between five and ten gallons of water each day
BY KYLEIGH PANETTA RALEIGH
MAY 10, 2021
RALEIGH, N.C. — Summer is one of the busiest and most profitable times for farmers across the state but what if they could grow produce year-round?
Nanue’s Farm in Raleigh is using some advanced technology to do just that.
What You Need To Know
Nanue's Farm is located in downtown Raleigh and uses hydroponic technology
The "container farm" is about 320-square feet and can hold 5,000 heads of lettuce
The technology is being used in dozens of countries and may help eliminate "food deserts"
Nanue’s Farm is on S. West Street, what some may say is a pretty strange place for a farm.
“This is in downtown Raleigh. You can see the great skyline we have here,” said Trevor Spear, the owner of Nanue’s Farm. “I walk to work when I can. I don’t have to drive.”
Spear admits that a seemingly empty parking lot with a shipping container is not what most people expect to see when they arrive at a farm.
“It’s funny because people don’t understand what it is. They think it’s just a shipping container and people are storing stuff inside it,” said Spear.
Nanue’s probably looks more like a science experiment than a farm.
“It’s 65 degrees, 60% humidity. Co2 runs at night, so we’re like 2,000 parts of Co2 in there. It’s optimal growing conditions for lettuce and that’s how we do it in seven weeks’ time,” said Spear.
Spear specializes in leafy, crunchy greens. Something else you can hear inside the farm, from time to time, is classical music.
“We play classical music at night and I think it makes a difference. They like it. Sometimes we play a little Van Halen but usually Bach or Beethoven,” said Spear who knows that a little TLC goes a long way and said every lettuce has a name.
It’s not your typical lettuce but Spear is also not your typical farmer. He named the farm after his grandmother, Lydie Cox.
"When I was a kid I would go have summers at Nanue’s house and she had a huge garden, an acre size garden. I would go up and down the rows with her as a kid. That’s where I probably got the bug because once it bites you, you live with the sting," said Spear.
Nanue’s Farm is getting a second container in June and hopefully a third by the end of the year. They currently offer home delivery to a few areas and are looking into creating a farm stand. The majority of the produce is sold to local restaurants in the area.
"When chefs come and tour the farm, they open the door and they’re like, 'Wow.' We can hold 5,000 heads of lettuce. We harvest 60 cases a week, so when they walk in and see that much lettuce growing and looking as good as it does, it’s a take-back," said Spear.
If you’re interested in trying some of their lettuce, you can also find a Nanue’s salad at Hummingbird, a restaurant in Raleigh.
The technology that Nanue’s Farm uses was created by Boston-based company, Freight Farms. Each container has thousands of LED grow lights, temperature controls and uses between five and ten gallons of water each day.
The containers also have cameras and connect to Wi-Fi so it can be monitored from an app or website. Freight Farms said the goal is to replicate an ideal farming environment so that more people have access to fresh produce.
“In the U.S., food moves 500 to 1,000 miles, predominantly from California. If you can move the farm then you can put a farm in a food desert and then you can grow the food and the hyperlocal food and the high nutritional values of that food. Either food deserts or even urban areas,” said James Woolard, the chief marketing officer for Freight Farms. “You might not think it’s a food desert but it is from a socio-economic point of view and an access point of view.”
CANADA: Feeding a City From The World’s Largest Rooftop Greenhouse
Can you grow enough produce for an entire city in rooftop greenhouses? Two entrepreneurs in Montreal, Canada, believe it might be possible.
May. 08, 2021
By Sean Fleming
The world's largest rooftop greenhouse is in Montreal, Canada.
It measures more than 15,000m2 and produces more than 11,000kg of food per week.
The company behind it had to hire 200 new employees due to pandemic-driven demand.
Can you grow enough produce for an entire city in rooftop greenhouses? Two entrepreneurs in Montreal, Canada, believe it might be possible.
Lauren and Mohamed Hage cofounded Lufa in 2009. The company has four urban gardens in the Canadian city, all in rooftop greenhouses. Lufa's most recent sits on top of a former warehouse and measures more than 15,000m2 – larger than the other three greenhouses combined. Its main crops are tomatoes and aubergines, producing more than 11,000kg of food per week. It is, the company says, the largest rooftop greenhouse in the world.
An Ambitious Goal
Rathmell says the new greenhouse will accelerate Lufa's mission to grow food where people live and help it to meet an "ever-growing demand for fresh, local, and responsible foods".
The company – which says it's not trying to replace local farms and food makers, acknowledging that not everything can be grown on rooftops – follows what it calls 'responsible agriculture' practices. These include capturing and recirculating rainwater, energy-saving glass panels, and an absence of synthetic pesticides. Any waste is composted and reused, and food is sold directly to customers on the day it is harvested. Lufa also has a fleet of electric vehicles to make those deliveries.
"Our objective at Lufa is to get to the point where we're feeding everyone in the city," Hage said in an interview in Fortune. Lufa's fifth greenhouse is due to open later in 2021.
At the moment, Lufa grows food for around 2% of the city's population. While that might sound like a modest proportion, interest in urban agriculture is on the rise. Presently, agriculture in urban areas tends to be more common in developing countries. But the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) favors an increase in urban agriculture, saying it can have "important benefits for food security."
Urban farming is often more common among poorer members of society. UN FAO
A Growing Global Trend
Lufa produces more than 11,000kg of food per week, including tomatoes and aubergines. Lufa
Urban agriculture has been taking off in other parts of the world in recent years, too – from shipping containers in Brooklyn, New York City, to allotments in unused spaces in Brussels, Belgium.
And at 14,000 m2, there's Nature Urbaine in Paris – which claims to be the world's largest urban rooftop farm. Nature Urbaine rents out growing space to Parisians who want to grow their own crops. Tenant farmers pay around $450 per year per 1m2 sized plot. They get a welcome pack with everything they need to start growing, as well as regular access to the Nature Urbine gardening team who are on hand to offer advice and support.
Lufa's first greenhouse was opened in 2011, in Montreal's Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough, to grow herbs, microgreens, cucumbers, and peppers. Two more were added in 2013 and 2017, with the fourth joining last year. It sits on top of a former Sears warehouse in the Saint-Laurent area of the city.
In addition to its own produce, Lufa also sells a selection of other locally made or grown food, including bread, cheese, and drinks to its customers. Rising demand for its service, in the wake of the pandemic, led to the company hiring an additional 200 people, and partnering with 35 new farmers and food makers.
Lead photo: The new greenhouse will accelerate Lufa's mission to grow food. Lufa
Lufa
Were Medieval Cities Greener? Urban Agriculture In The Middle Ages
Cities have grown so rapidly in the past century that we tend to forget that, until the late nineteenth century, the vast majority of people actually lived in rural settings
By Lucie Laumonier
Cities have grown so rapidly in the past century that we tend to forget that, until the late nineteenth century, the vast majority of people actually lived in rural settings. Even just one hundred years ago, most of the suburbs of large modern cities were completely rural.
In the Middle Ages, cities comprised a large population of farmers, ploughmen, and agriculturalists who worked in close vicinity to urban spaces. Most cities’ outskirts included an important portion of estates dedicated to agriculture where urban peasants laboured. However, one of the key characteristics of any city is that the food it produces does not suffice to feed its population. Medieval cities thus had to import most of the foodstuff required to sustain their citizens, even if a portion of it was produced locally.
Medieval cities were also full of gardens and vegetable beds that people cultivated for their own sustenance or for extra revenues. This preoccupation with urban agriculture is evident in Le Ménagier, a housekeeping guide written by a fourteenth-century gentleman from Paris for his young wife which included several sections about gardens. This was done in part so that his wife would “have some knowledge on horticulture and gardening, grafting in the proper season, and keeping roses in winter.”
This article looks at the urban farmers of medieval France and discusses the roles of the gardens that were found throughout medieval cities.
Urban peasants: How Many Were There?
Medieval population estimates depend on the nature of available sources, few of which were drafted for demographic purposes. Wills and fiscal sources are often the main indicators of a population’s stratification. In the town of Manresa, Catalonia, 13.5% of fifteenth-century taxpayers were farmers. This proportion is relatively low, especially compared to the large city of Montpellier, Languedoc, which counted more than 30,000 inhabitants on the eve of the Black Death. There, 22% of the 1380-1480 taxpayers were farmers or gardeners.
The data thus suggests that one in five late medieval urban dwellers in Montpellier practised agriculture. But, except for the gardeners, we have no concrete information about the actual work the farmers performed. We do not know for instance what proportion specialized in cattle or sheep rearing; how many were mainly producing wine or cereals. We do not know either how many owned the fields they tilled, how many farmed the estates of others, or how many had no land and no job security, and hopped from farm to farm looking for work.
A gardener from around the year 1425, depicted in the Housebooks of Nuremberg – Amb. 317.2 fol. 8v
Part-Time Urban Farmers
Few work contracts were made by the urban peasantry. In Marseille, Provence, 10% of the fourteenth-century work contracts analysed by Francine Michaud concerned farming and agriculture. The figure is low but compares to the data I collected for Montpellier in Languedoc. The reason for such a small figure is that agriculture, in general, seldom prompted the drafting of a work contract, even in rural settings where it was the primary occupation of workers. Since agricultural work was seasonal in nature, it rarely called for the legal guarantees long-term work contracts required.
In the Montpellier sources, some self-identified urban peasants juggled different jobs, suggesting that agriculture was not, in fact, their full-time occupation. Some men described themselves as “agriculturalist and gardener”. Two men were “carpenter and ploughmen;” one taxpayer worked as “musician and ploughman and public crier;” one was a “glove maker and ploughman;” while another was listed as a “ploughman and fishmonger.” It is possible that agriculture was their primary occupation but that they had a side activity to make ends meet.
But it is also possible these workers took on agricultural work during harvest season as a way to supplement their earnings coming from their other activity. Medieval city dwellers often owned small pieces of land they rented out or cultivated in their free time. In the town of Castelnaudary, near Toulouse, 95% of the fourteenth-century taxpaying inhabitants owned at least some agricultural land. The rate was 91.5% in the fifteenth century. Most of these landowners held very small estates (less than 2 hectares), which would not have sufficed to sustain their families. Nonetheless, these lands did offer the guarantee of some sustenance to their owners.
Urban Gardens for the Poor and the Wealthy
Vegetables, fruits, and various herbs had always been cultivated in cities for practical and sustenance purposes. Cities were covered with backyard vegetable beds in which people planted cabbage, carrots, peas, and other products they would eat. Historian Jerry Stannard dubbed such vegetable beds “kitchen gardens” and underlines that “the produce of the smallest, most crudely tilled plot was preferable to nothing at all,” in that they provided “free” food to their owners. Besides vegetables, artisans and workers also planted (grew) medicinal plants.
However, the existence of kitchen gardens often depended on the population density of cities and on the demographic context. At times of demographic pressure, when cities were full, the spaces taken up by the gardens and vegetable patches of the poor were used for housing. The size and number of such gardens therefore decreased. But when the population declined, such as after the Black Death, unoccupied lots and abandoned houses were turned into vegetable beds to help sustain more modest households. Today still, depopulation in cities sometimes prompts the reconversion of available lands into gardens and parks.
Unthreatened by demographic changes were the patrician gardens that belonged to the wealthier inhabitants of cities. These gardens were usually of the mixed type, containing edible and medicinal plants as well as ornamental species cultivated for their beauty and delightful scents. Ornamental gardens were heavily featured in medieval literature (which teems with scenes unfolding in gardens), where protagonists engaged in all sorts of activities — preferably courting a lady or discussing philosophy with allegorical figures. The Romance of the Rose is a fitting example of such.
An illustration from Roman de La Rose, depicting a fountain and a stream pouring outwards from the centre of the garden – Wikimedia Commons
Ornamental Gardens: Aromatherapy and the Pleasure of the Senses
Ornamental gardens gained traction (in popularity) after the devastations of the plague and its ulterior episodes. The scientific belief that nasty vapours carrying miasmas had caused the disease, as the airborne transmission of plague through droplets had been acknowledged by medieval physicians, fuelled the idea that gardens had the power to clean up the air. Gardens, in short, had a curative power one should not ignore. Through their odour, wrote Italian physician Marsilio Ficino in the second half of the fifteenth century, flowers and plants “restore and invigorate you on all sides, as if by the breath and spirit of the life of the world.”
The curative virtues of gardens worked in two ways, notes historian Carol Rawcliffe. On the one hand, the smell of flowers restores health by strengthening the heart, while on the other it works as a prophylactic agent. Medieval scientists recommended the scent of roses and violets as a form of protection against the plague. The perfume of violets was also prescribed to treat headaches, fevers, and skin diseases. Fourteenth-century physician John of Burgundy therefore recommended “to smell roses, violets, and lilies” before leaving one’s home in times of plague to avoid catching the disease.
Even more ambitious was physician Ibn Khatimah, who had witnessed the devastations of the Black Death in Andalusia. He argued that cities should protect themselves from the plague through the intensive cultivation of sweet-smelling plants around their boundaries. This physical barrier against the disease could then be enhanced by the stockpiling of plants to prevent its vapours from reaching the cities’ dwellers. In their homes, town dwellers could scatter freshly cut herbs and flowers on the floor to clear the air; and “refresh” their straw mattresses with the addition of lavender and other plants.
Besides the curative virtues listed above, medieval physicians also believed flowers to be beneficial to mental health. Walking in gardens, smelling and looking at flowers uplifted people’s morale, which in turn had positive effects on their general health. Moderate exercise and strolls in gardens or, when possible, in the countryside, cured both the soul and the body. The reason why medieval hospitals kept gardens in their precincts were both practical (cultivating the medicine and food they needed) and philosophical, thus enabling the sick to breathe some fresh air and engage in light yet invigorating activities.
Medieval cities were surrounded by agricultural estates. Within their walls, the urban space was partly covered with gardens that belonged to the wealthy, to hospitals and convents. In humbler neighbourhoods, the extent land was taken up by private gardens depended on the period of time and the density of the city in question. The fewer the inhabitants of a city, the more numerous its gardens tended to be. Besides their role in alimentation, gardens, ornamental ones especially, also had medicinal virtues for the soul and the body. In the Middle Ages, smelling the roses was to be taken literally.
Lucie Laumonier is an Affiliate assistant professor at Concordia University. Click here to view her Academia.edu page or follow her on Instagram at The French Medievalist.
US: INDIANA - Indianapolis Indoor Farm Packages Leafy Greens To Uplift East Side
An indoor-farming facility using cutting-edge technology is bringing new food options to the city’s east side
by: David Williams
May 7, 2021
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An indoor-farming facility using cutting-edge technology is bringing new food options to the city’s east side.
Uplift Produce grows, harvests, and packages leafy greens in a renovated 60,000-square-foot facility in Indianapolis.
“We say that we’re fresh-to-market in hours and the reason for that is we actually harvest, pack, and ship within a matter of a few hours into distribution channels,” Chris Arnold, CEO of Uplift Produce, said Friday.
Keith Cooper, Uplift Produce location manager, said depending on the product, they grow from seed to finish in 14-21 days, with a “100% controlled environment. So, we’re controlling the CO2, the humidity, and temperature to be exactly at the set points that the plant needs.”
The business is a joint venture with a Dutch company called PlantLab. The first product launched from the Indianapolis facility in October. Arnold said the company is committed to uplifting the community.
“It’s working well here in Indianapolis to have that partnership, meaning that every dollar that’s ever made here, a portion of those goes directly right back here into the community,” Arnold said.
They’ve got 11 employees right now. Uplift produce donates about 150 pounds of food a week to places that include Second Helpings hunger relief and the Cafe Patachou Foundation. This area is in the midst of revitalization.
“Everything that we do is really centered around, ‘How do we uplift people and the whole community support?’ Really that partnership with Englewood and the work that the folks at the Englewood Community Development Corporation are doing here in the community, we’re really just trying to equip them to continue to do the work that they do,” Arnold said.
Arnold said he is called to do this work — not only to feed people but also to help this area.
“Our desire is that people would be able to just live, work and play in this neighborhood. Be able to directly walk into work and never have to get in a car,” Arnold said.
The Englewood Community Development Corporation is an ownership partner, Arnold said. The facility is housed at the historic P.R. Mallory campus, inside the Bunker Building.
Arnold told News 8 there are plans to expand the facility even more by the end of this year and bring an additional 20 jobs to Indianapolis.
Uplift Produce has facilities in seven different states and several cities. You can find their products online at Green Bean Delivery and hope to sell on retail shelves in Indianapolis soon.
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