indoor farming

Following up on their review of recent bad news in the field of vertical farming, Melissa and Wythe catch up with an expert: Henry Gordon-Smith, founding CEO of the urban and controlled environment agriculture consultancy Agritecture. Henry relates his thoughts on recent shifts in commercial indoor and urban agriculture, reflecting on some of Agritecture’s experiences and what could happen in the near future. It’s a short, fun, and informative conversation!

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Fields by becoming a member!

Fields is Powered by Simplecast.

Melissa and Wythe catch up with each other regarding a recent trend in urban agriculture: the closure or financial restructuring of several high-profile indoor farms in urban areas. We look at recent news articles on this topic, theorize why the indoor ag-tech sector is struggling, and speculate about what could happen next. We’ll return to this important topic with guests over the course of the season, so subscribe!

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Fields by becoming a member!

Fields is Powered by Simplecast.

We first met Farm.One founder Rob Laing in 2016 on episode 145. Farm.One opened in Tribeca growing rare herbs, edible flowers, micro greens, and other exotic produce year-round for chefs and restaurants, using hydroponics and LED lighting. Episode 240 covers 2020, the global pandemic, and Farm.One’s pivot into delivering freshly-harvested greens to New York subscribers by bike and their move to a larger farm in Brooklyn. On this episode of Tech Bites, host Jennifer Leuzzi talks to Rob Laing, Founder and CRO, and Derek Pitts, Chairman and CEO, about how Farm.One has expanded and evolved into a neighborhood farm now serving chefs, members, and the community with fresh greens, farm tours, and classes.

Photo Courtesy of Peter Dressel.

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Tech Bites by becoming a member!

Tech Bites is Powered by Simplecast.

Can we really grow sustainable, delicious, and healthy food right in the heart of a bustling city? In this eye-opening episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Tobias Peggs, co-founder and CEO of Square Roots, an innovative indoor urban farm tech company that's revolutionizing how we grow and distribute food in urban areas.

Together, we explored the intricate operations of creating a successful indoor urban farm, from engineering and construction to farming and distribution processes. Tobias shared fascinating insights on how Square Roots uses cutting-edge technology to minimize its environmental impact, reduce its carbon footprint, and produce food sustainably despite the challenges posed by climate change.

We also touched upon the importance of staying true to a company's mission and values, as well as how Square Roots navigated the COVID-19 pandemic and adapted their business to continue providing fresh, nutritious, and mouth-watering produce to their community. Don't miss this thought-provoking conversation on the future of urban agriculture and how it can help us tackle some of the most pressing global issues of our time.

In This Episode

(0:00:16) - Indoor Urban Farming for Sustainable Food

• Tobias  and I discuss engineering, construction, farming, tech operations, packing, and distribution of urban food production.

(0:10:55) - Revolutionizing Urban Farming With Square Roots

• Tobias discusses Square Roots' sustainable farming process, commercialization, and chefs' satisfaction.

(0:25:29) - Reducing Carbon Footprint for Local Farming

• Tobias and his team use technology to produce food sustainably, reducing their environmental impact through design, energy, and distribution.

(0:31:02) - Mission, Values, and Adapting to Change

• Tobias and I discuss mission and values, adapting to unexpected circumstances, and physical operations to stay focused.

Links

Square Roots - https://www.squarerootsgrow.com

Tobias Peggs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaspeggs

Michael Koenig - https://linkedin.com/in/michael-koenig514

Episode - https://betweentwocoos.com/square-roots-ceo-tobias-peggs

Formal agronomic backgrounds are uncommon amongst cannabis growers in the United States due to the long-standing federal illegality of cannabis. Our Canadian neighbors federally legalized cannabis in October 2018, opening the door to a new age of cannabis research in North America.

Youbin Zheng, Environmental Horticulture professor at the University of Guelph, stopped by FOHSE HQ to speak on his background, how legalization has impacted his research on cannabis, and how cannabis responds to light intensity. We also uncover how nutrient composition leads to pH fluctuations in the root zone, how spectrum plays a role in plant morphology, and much more!

If you're interested in Youbin’s book on Cannabis Production in Controlled Environments, click here.

Connect with FŌHSE:
Visit FŌHSE: https://www.fohse.com
Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/fohse_inc
Follow us on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/fohse
Follow us on Instagram: ...

Don Taylor is the founder and CEO of AmplifiedAg, a technology company with the mission of providing global access to safe food while not harming the planet in the process. The company manufactures indoor container farms and technologies to grow nutritious food directly at the point of consumption. AmplifiedAg's Vertical Roots brand is the largest hydroponic container farm in the world, with its leafy greens available in over 2,000 retailers in the U.S. 

A software industry veteran for more than 30 years, Don has developed and provided advanced software solutions to the healthcare, banking and logistics industries, and now for indoor agriculture. 

Before his software career, Don served 4 years in the United States Navy as an electrician on a Navy surface ship. Acquired through his service, Don’s expert knowledge of electricity, plumbing, mechanical architecture and closed loop systems in tight spaces was later applied to engineering AmplifiedAg indoor farms in shipping containers.

Don currently serves on the Industrial Advisory Board for the College of Charleston’s Engineering program. 

DI Martin Parapatits ist Geschäftsführer von PhytonIQ  in Oberwart und baut Wasabi und Salat im Indoor Farming Verfahren an. Wir haben mit ihm über die Anbautechnik, die Auswahl der Pflanzen und die Vorteile dieses Verfahrens gesprochen.

If you live in New York City, how far would you have to go to get to a neighborhood farm selling freshly harvested greens? Turns out, you just need to get to Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights. On this episode of Tech Bites, host Jennifer Leuzzi talks with returning guest Rob Laing, CEO and Founder of Farm.One. Started in 2016, Farm.One grows rare herbs, edible flowers, microgreens, and other exotic produce year-round and pesticide-free, using hydroponics and LED lighting. Since 2020, the company now delivers freshly-harvested greens to New York subscribers by bike, all packaged in reusable containers. This episode of Tech Bites is made possible by the generosity of Garden Cult.

Photo Courtesy of Farm.One.

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Tech Bites by becoming a member!

Tech Bites is Powered by Simplecast.

In 2019 Americans consumed 31.4 pounds of tomatoes per person, with sales topping $3 billion, and imports accounting for more than $2 billion. That’s why new ag-tech company AppHarvest is growing tomatoes in a 30-acre indoor facility in Appalachia. By targeting the popular vegetable and producing it at scale, the company hopes to change not only how, but where things are grown. On this episode, host Jennifer Leuzzi talks with returning guest David Lee, president of AppHarvest, about robots, creating terroir, and a new vision of farming. Tech Bites Episode 233 is made possible by the generosity of Forever Cheese.

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Tech Bites by becoming a member!

Tech Bites is Powered by Simplecast.

During the pandemic, outdoor and indoor spaces are being reconceptualized to better suit new ways of living, working, and eating. In this episode we’ll explore the ways familiar spaces are shifting to become more hygienic, more profitable, and more accessible. We start with a story about the expansion of outdoor dining into New York City’s sidewalks and streets. Then we travel to outer space to learn how astronauts are abandoning freeze-dried foods for home cooked meals. We wander through a park that aims to forge a healthier relationship between people and plants. And we examine how one vertical farm has reimagined both agriculture and office space. 

Further Reading:

Watch Candace’s explorations in urban foraging on a series of videos on the CURB’s Instagram.

Learn more about food in space on Episode 45 of Meat and Three: Houston, We Have Dip n Dots. Listen on our website here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meat and Three by becoming a member!

Meat and Three is Powered by Simplecast.

Controlled Environmental Agriculture promises to be cleaner and greener. It’s focussed on technology and it’s essentially about bringing food production closer to the point of consumption. We examine the potential and the pitfalls.

Today's guest is Hunter McDaniel of the company UbiQD. As in ubiquitous, but the "QD" stands for quantum dots. Today's episode is one of those wide ranging talks that has become a hallmark of some of our best M4Edge discussions. We cover not just what a quantum dot is and what UbiQD does, but the Department of Energy's National Laboratory system and the importance of basic science in the innovation process. We talk about solar power generation from your tinted windows, and we even talk about cannabis. UbiQD makes quantum dots, which are so small they're kind of impossible to imagine as you'll hear Hunter describe. Their size; their existence at the nanoscale or, more precisely, the quantum scale makes them effective at absorbing a broad spectrum of light and then converting that energy into emitted light of specific colors that you can choose or "tune" with a precise manufacturing process. So, for example, you can tune the dots to emit an orange kind of late or blue late or whatever you want. Much like our 2020 kickoff guest, Alison Kopf of Artemis, Hunter and UbiQD have chosen the indoor agriculture industry as a good first target market, including the fast booming cannabis market. But the potential for QD is enormous, including energy efficiency and lighting, solar power from the walls and windows of your skyscrapers, thinking and pigments and more. It's pretty fascinating; imagine these tiny, tiny things that could have a huge, huge impact on how we power our economy. 

https://www.lanl.gov/
https://www.energy.gov/national-laboratories

We decided to kick off the new year, the new decade and our new season with the basics: food. Our guest Allison Kopf, founder of Artemis, set out to tackle a fundamental challenge -how to make sure the world can feed its rapidly growing population in a sustainable way. But Artemis approaches this grand problem in a very nuts-and-bolts way, namely by digitizing the agriculture supply chain so as to eliminate inefficiencies and reduce costs.
Moreover, Artemis’ software enables traceability across the supply chain, which means greater security. If something goes wrong, someone gets sick, Artemis’ software will enable you to trace every step where the contamination could have occurred – and without blockchain! We also talk about the specific challenges of traceability in a biological chain, the key role of labor in agriculture and the impact of policy and immigration changes, and the challenges and opportunities for urban farming. This is a great conversation packed with insights on a sector that touches our daily lives like no other. We hope you enjoy it, pass it along and write us a review.

In this episode, we also include a brief plug for our new venture, the M4 Strategy Garage. We have created a series of strategic advisory offerings tailored to startups in their growth phase. To learn more, send us a note to StrategyGarage@M4Edge.com

https://artemisag.com/ 

Controlled Environmental Agriculture promises to be cleaner and greener. It’s focussed on technology and it’s essentially about bringing food production closer to the point of consumption. We examine the potential and the pitfalls.

You are affected by agronomy everyday. Really. Anything that is grown – food, textile crops, and green public spaces - are all influenced by the science of agronomy, the practice that looks at agriculture from a holistic POV. With the increasing popularity and viability of indoor farming, agronomy has gone high tech. On this episode, we look at the virtual agronomist platform Agrilyst. It tracks and analyzes all farm data in one place, enabling growers to optimize plant performance and reduce operating expenses. In-studio guest Allison Kopf, founder/CEO of Agrilyst, talks about indoor-farming tech and growing trends for the future.

Tech Bites is powered by Simplecast

This week on The Farm Report, we bring you a special field piece recorded at AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey.

Vertical farming is the practice of producing food in vertically stacked layers, vertically inclined surfaces and/or integrated in other structures, and AeroFarms is the largest vertical farm in the world. Their state-of-the-art aeroponic growing system uses a patented technology that allows us to grow food indoors without sun or soil, using 95% less water than in the field.

Tune in for a tour of their Newark Farm facility, a 30,000 square foot former paintball and laser tag arena.