This Farming Company Hopes to Tackle

World Hunger With Indoor Agriculture

Local Roots, (https://www.localrootsfarms.com) an indoor farming company, is seeking to end
world hunger with sustainable indoor agriculture. They are already serving fresh produce to
SpaceX and others in Silicon Valley.

By Taylor Donovan Barnett

December, 16th 2017

Local Roots Farms

Elon Musk has been hard at work to reshape the world into his sustainable and innovative image.
His work for SpaceX and Tesla have not only positvely impacted the globe but inspired many
companies to build innovative companies with noble causes. One of the biggest challenges of our
generation may come down to a lack of resources to feed people. The United Nations estimates
the world population to reach 9.7 billion by 2050; this means more mouths to feed. Considering
SpaceX as their role models, companies like Local Roots hopes to alleviate some of the pressure
on the world's resources.

Aerospace

SpaceX Has Set Its Target on Achieving 19 Launches in 2017

A New Way of Farming
The indoor farming company hopes to increase the food supply through their state-of-the-art
process. The process is simple, instead of growing produce under natural sunlight, crops are
grown under LED lights in a "nutrient-rich water-based solution that mimics soil." Because of
this, indoor farmers can grow almost any type of crop, year round. "At Local Roots, we design,
build and operate the world’s most productive indoor farming solutions. We believe the key to a
more sustainable future requires eliminating supply-chain risks and undoing the
commoditization of the food industry", says the team.

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Source: Local Roots Farms

Local Roots grows food using shipping containers called TerraFarms. These containers are on
average 320 feet squared. Impressively these containers could produce 4,000 heads of lettuce
every day in their propriety pods that mimic soil. If you are curious about the environmental
impact of this project, do not worry. Even more impressively, Local Root's Terrafarms can run
99% less water compared to traditional crops. Local Roots has many customers in Silicon Valley
including space exploration titan SpaceX.

Respected and idolized Elon Musk has created brands that impacted the world for the better.
Some of his projects include the Mars-bound SpaceX program, environmentally friendly Solar
City, and the elegant but powerful Tesla super electric car. Musk is always pursuing projects that
serve the world and humanity. Elon's goals include reducing global warming through sustainable
energy production and consumption and reducing the risk of human extinction by making human
life multi-planetary. Projects like Local Roots will help facilitate his vision.
The Local Roots team will deploy more than 100 new TerraFarms in 2018 and move into an even
more technically advanced 165,000-square-foot manufacturing and headquarters in Vernon,
California. The companies series A financing is expected to end in 2018.

Vertical Farming Revolution Is Coming To A

Store Near You

By Interesting Engineering
April, 04th 2016
 [Image Source:
INFARM Website]

Have you ever considered how absurd it is to go to a grocery store, buy a head of lettuce, and
then later on notice that it came from somewhere really far away like Chile? How many planes,
trains and trucks did it take for that head of lettuce to arrive in your refrigerator? How much gas
and total energy was used in the process and how many hands passed over that lettuce to make it
to your home? If you think about such things, it strikes you that this model is the opposite of
intelligent design.

Let's face it: it's wasteful and absurd. We're living in the so-called intelligent design era, but we're
eating from plates designed by energy-wasting dull palates from the industrial past. Well, that
past may finally be coming to end with INFARM. What's INFARM?

INFARM does a great job of describing itself:

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"Imagine a future where cities become self-sufficient in their food production, where
autonomous farms grow fresh premium produce at affordable prices, eliminating waste and
environmental impact." -INFARM website

INFARM is located in Berlin, Germany and is truly revolutionary because its vertical farms
utilize space and energy in an optimal manner. It completely does away with wasteful energy
practices that currently dominate modern grocery stores. No pesticides are used, an app is
utilized to bring farm management to the palm of your hand, it's cost-effective, the vegetables are
fresher, more nutrient-dense and the team at INFARM consists of plant scientists, robotics
specialists, industrial designers, IT wizards, architects, futurists and chefs. It's unique because it
employs farming as a service business model. By providing the technical growing knowledge in
an easy-to-digest and implement manner, this system has a serious chance at being adopted on a
mass scale and very soon at that.

A wholesale store in Germany, part of the Metro Cash and Carry group currently carries the
INFARM vertical farming system and is the first grocery store in Europe to do so.

SEE ALSO: Pasona Group’s office building turned into an

urban farm

[Image Source:
Metro Group]

According to Ray Kurzweil, Director of Engineering at Google, "The 2020's will be the decade
of the vertical farming revolution." Ray Kurzweil is no stranger to innovation and knowing
where the future is headed. To slightly get off-tangent, Kurzweil believes that humans will be
hybrids by 2030. CNN Money wrote an article about Kurzweil:

"Kurzweil, who is known as one the world's leading inventors, has predicted what the future will
look like before. In the '90s, he made 147 predictions for 2009. In 2010, he reviewed his
predictions, 86% of which were correct. He gave himself a "B" grade."

So, as far as vertical farming goes, it appears that it's not a question of how but when. If I had a
grocery store chain, I would be doing some serious investigation and adoption of the systems that
INFARM has designed right now. There seems to be a tremendous opportunity waiting to
happen. This vertical farming revolution coincides well with the organic movement and the trend
of consumers wanting to know where their food comes from. It appears that the future of food is
going to be non-GMO, pesticide-free, tasty, available 365 days per year and extremely energy
and cost efficient.

Leah Stephens is a writer, artist, experimenter and founder of Into The Raw. Follow her
on Twitter or Medium.

Written by Leah Stephens

13 Vertical Farming Innovations That Could

Revolutionize Agriculture
These revolutionary vertical farming innovations can soon replace the traditional agriculture
techniques.

By Kashyap Vyas
July, 04th 2018

1, 2, 3

Many have wondered for years if vertical farming is really the answer to the shortage of food in
the world. However strange the concept of vertical farming might seem to many startups, it is an
ingenious method to produce food in environments where arable land is unavailable or rare at the
most.

This method is especially handy for challenging environments such as deserts, mountainside
towns, and cities where many diverse types of vegetables and fruits are grown using precision
agriculture methods and skyscraper-like designs.

Vertical farming is a revolutionary and more sustainable method of agriculture than its
counterpart as it lowers the requirement of water to up to 70% and also saves considerable space
and soil. This innovation in the field of agriculture with sustainability as its motto is making
more and more heads turn today with its eco-friendly methods and making the possibility of
farming real in difficult environs.

Let us check out the top 13 vertical farming innovations that could end up in your plate in the
near future!

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1. Hydroponics – Growing Plants Without Soil

Source: Oregon State University/Flickr

Hydroponics is a predominant system of growing that is used in vertical farming, and it is slowly
but steadily, gaining importance. It involves around the growth of plants in solutions of nutrients
that are essentially free of soil.

In this vertical farming innovation, the roots of the plants are submerged in a solution of
nutrients. This is frequently circulated and monitored in order to ensure that there is the
maintenance of the correct chemical composition in the nutrient solution.

2. Aeroponics – Growing Plants With No Soil and Very Little

Water
Source: MyAeroponics/Wikimedia Commons

The innovation of Aeroponics in the field of vertical farming was made by The National
Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). This sustainable growing technique was
invented by NASA in the 1990s when it was looking for efficient techniques to grow plants in
space.

This technique was then coined Aeroponics and was defined as "growing plants in an air/mist
environment with no soil and very little water." However, these systems are yet to rise from an
anomaly in the world of vertical farming even though they continue to create interest.

It is undoubtedly the most efficient way in vertical farming as it uses a staggering 90% less
amount of water than the most efficient hydroponics systems too. It has also been observed that
the plants that are grown with the aeroponics system uptake more vitamins and minerals, thus
making the plants potentially healthier and more nutritious.
3. Aquaponics – An Ecosystem that Promotes Plants and
Fish Farming Together

Source: Kate Field/Flickr

An Aquaponics System is much like the Hydroponics System but is only better. It aims to
combine the fish and plants in the same ecosystem. In this system, fish grow in indoor ponds and
produce a nutrient-rich waste that further acts as a food source for the plants grown in vertical
farms.

The plants, doing their part, purify and filter the wastewater that gets recycled directly to the fish
ponds. Aquaponics is definitely used at a smaller scale than most vertical farming innovations.
However, it is still used by many commercial vertical farms that wish to produce just a few fast-
growing crops instead of including the component of aquaponics. As a result, the production and
economics issues are simplified and it also maximizes efficiency.

That said, this closed-cycle system might become more popular with the popularity of new
standardized aquaponic systems.

4. Lokal – Serving Fresh Food Right Where It’s Grown

Source: Space10

The Space10 innovation lab of IKEA came up with the idea of Lokal that uses a Hydroponic
farming system. It also uses LEDs to have your kitchen garden in stackable trays.

According to the designers of Lokal, the greens grow three times faster in Lokal than traditional
gardens. They are also testing another innovation wherein they will integrate sensors into the
growing trays, which will help you check the status of the crops with the help of smartphones or
Google Homes.

In the long run, they also want to use machine learning to collect and analyze data from the
people using Lokal to assess the productivity. This innovation can really help people grow fresh
food in their own local mini-farms.

5. AeroFarms – The Smart Vertical Farming Innovation

Source: AeroFarms

When it comes to indoor farming, AeroFarms are the commercial leaders in this field with their
innovation of using the aeroponic system of farming that ensures predictable results of your
harvest, less impact on the environment, faster harvesting period and superior quality of food.
The technology helps growing greens without using any sun or soil.

Therefore, it is easier to control the results of the harvest. The vertical farming innovation makes
use of smart light, smart aeroponics, smart nutrition, smart data, smart pest management, smart
substrate and smart scaling.
AeroFarms aims to transform the whole system of agriculture by building and making farms that
are environmentally responsible. They are building farms around the world to make sure there is
a local production of food that is nutritious, safe, sustainable and delicious.

In short, they want to grow more crops in less space which can bring about a food revolution.

6. Plantscapers – A Building that Provides Food for its

Occupants
Source: Plantagon

A Swedish food tech company called Plantagon is coming up with a creative solution that would
allow office spaces and buildings to help feed a large number of people. In order to use the
innovative methods of vertical farming, Plantagon has bought the rights to a vertical greenhouse
from an organic farmer named Åke Olsson who believes in using technical innovation to find
effective farming solutions.

Olsson developed a rack transport system that gradually moves the planting boxes from the floor
to the ceiling of a vertical greenhouse, thus requiring no artificial light.

These vertical greenhouses or plantscapers are integrated directly into the office buildings with
the functionality of hydroponic farming. The building would be named the World Food Building
with the aim of producing at least 550 tons of vegetables every year and is planned to be
constructed in Linköping, Sweden.

This is an estimated amount of vegetables that can provide food for almost 5000 people. High-
level automation will be employed for the maintenance and harvest of plants in order to keep the
costs very low.

Moreover, everything starting with sunlight, temperature, and nutrition, as well as air quality,
will be measured through autonomous and controlled systems.

To sum up, it is a great innovation that keeps in mind sustainability and the requirements of
people by keeping the costs of transportation very low and also by saving high amounts of
energy, emissions, and water. If the concept becomes a success, more countries like Singapore,
Hong Kong, United States and others have plans to adopt it too.

7. VertiCrop – A Sustainable Farming Technique for Urban

Areas
VertiCrop is a proprietary agriculture technique that has been deemed as one of the World’s
Greatest Inventions by TIME Magazine in 2009. This patent-pending technology was designed
and developed so that food could be grown naturally in the environment of bustling urban areas.

This proprietary method offers quite a paradigm shift in food production and sustainable farming
methods. It provides up to twenty times the yield of your standard field crops and uses merely
8% of the water that is usually needed for soil farming.

The vertical farming innovation works on a suspended tray configuration that is unique in itself
and moves on a conveyor system. VertiCrop offers optimal exposure to both artificial and natural
light in addition to nutrients that are precisely measured for every plant.
It has been designed in a way that it can promote the healthy growth of crops in controlled and
closed-loop environments. Furthermore, it entirely gets rid of the need for using harmful
herbicides and pesticides and maximizes food value, nutrition and above all, taste.

8. Modular Farms – Produce Fresh Plants Virtually

Anywhere in the World
The very exclusive and sustainable Modular Farm System is another great innovation in the
world of vertical farming from the company called ModularFarms. It is an entirely indoor system
of vertical farming that has the ability to produce healthy and fresh plants virtually in any climate
and anywhere in the world.

If that doesn’t intrigue you enough, it is a custom-built design that is based on an urban farm
idea. This modular farm scales according to need and has additional modules that are available
for diverse purposes.

The Modular Farm System concentrates solely on farmer ROI and plant health. This system is
the perfect pairing of container farms, and the tried & tested technology of vertical farming.

This balance between the two promotes an endless growth of fresh and locally produced plants.
A highlight of this vertical farming innovation is that you can customize your system and extend
its functionality according to your agriculture needs to accommodate any sized operation.

9. Cubic Farming Systems – The Next-Gen Sustainable

Farming System
Cubic Farms, as its CEO Dave Dinesen points out in his TEDx Abbotsford speech, is the next
generation of consistent, predictable and profitable farm productions. It works on the conveyor
rotation method, automated nutrient delivery system and LED lighting.

The machines used for growing crops create an optimal environment for the greens. It also uses
1/26th the amount of water that is utilized in traditional agriculture, thus making it sustainable.

One would usually not associate these words with agriculture or growing. However, the patented
Dutch Cubic Farming system entirely eliminates risks of common farming to standardize the
outputs by controlling the inputs.

This, in turn, means a steady and more predictable income in addition to more consistency in the
size, taste, and color of the produce. It also promises a longer shelf life and higher nutritional
content for your greens.

10. ZipGrow – Vertical Farming for the Modern Farmers

The motto of ZipGrow is to ‘EDUCATE. EQUIP. EMPOWER.’ The ZipGrow team has come up
with innovative farming solutions for the modern farmers who do not have the required tools and
experience to scale or start a hydroponic farming business.

ZipGrow understands the challenges that are faced by the average farmers today in terms of
suboptimal growing equipment, poor farming or poor understanding of what the market really
wants. As a result, ZipGrow has built a multitude of services and products so that the deck can be
stacked in their favor.

They have basically revolutionized the industry of vertical farming with system controls, vertical
plane growing technology and high-tech workflow designs to help countless farmers globally.

11. Bowery – The Most Technologically-sophisticated

Commercial Indoor Farm in the World
Source: boweryfarming/Instagram

The indoor farming company, Bowery is developing a technologically advanced farming system
that will be capable to yield 30 times more produce and grow more than 100 kinds of herbs and
leafy greens. The system according to the company will control the entire growing process
indoors without using pesticides through their technology system BoweryOS.
The technology will automatically generate ideal conditions for the plants while collecting the
data as they grow. The data will help in providing the plants with the exact amount of light,
nutrients or purified water.

In addition, the sophisticated analysis will further allow harvesting the crops at the right time
when its flavor is at its best. The produce cultivated through Bowery’s system utilizes 95% less
water compared to the traditional farming.

12. Skyfarm – A Wind-Powered Vertical Farming Tower

Source: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

An architectural firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners from London demonstrated a concept
called Skyfarm during the World Architectural Festival in 2014. The idea is to build a
hyperboloid tower that makes use of different farming techniques including aquaponics and
traditional soil-based planting methods to produce crops within high-density urban areas or at
places where land availability is less.

The multi-story building uses bamboo to create a rigid circular frame while maximizes the sun
exposure onto the farm. The tower supports both the growth of crops and fish together through a
re-circulating system where the nutrients from fish water are fed to the crops while the plants
provide filters for the fish to thrive.

The bottom of the tower is designed to have a large transparent tank consisting of freshwater for
the farming of fishes like bass, tilapia, and barramundi. In the middle of the tower, the plants are
grown through hydroponics using water.

Above this, the plants are grown through aeroponics using only water mists and no soil. The top
of the tower consists of water tanks and turbines.

The tower is an example of a sustainable solution for growing produce with a short shelf life
around the year with easy accessibility for the urban population.
13. Sky Greens – The World’s First Hydraulic Driven
Vertical Farm

Source: Sky Greens

The Singapore-based company Sky Greens has developed a revolutionary vertical farming
system which is also the world’s first low carbon, hydraulic driven farm. The vegetables are
planted on shelves that keep on rotating throughout the day.

The plants at the bottom receive water, while the ones at the top get sunlight and the process
continues. This approach minimizes the use of water, land, and energy over the conventional
farming techniques.
Energy & Environment

11 Innovations That Could Build the Food of the Future

In addition, the Sky Urban Vertical Farming System is capable of producing 10 times more yield
compared to traditional farms. While the system is currently used to grow Asian vegetables, it
can also be used to grow all kinds of fruits and veggies.

Vertical farming is definitely an attractive option for farmers these days as more and more
industry experts embrace it and for a good reason. It promises a much more sustainable way of
farming in addition to not just producing quality produce but also cutting down on costs and
making agriculture more eco-friendly.

These innovations are bound to rise in popularity and revolutionize the face of vertical farming
in the future!