Daily Quick read - August 22, 2019

Rooftop Farms of Paris

                                                                                                        Photo by Agripolis

What is the future of farming?  A few weeks ago, we featured a floating dairy farm in Rotterdam harbour.  That's not all the city farming being done in Europe. There are some good sized rooftop farms in cities like Paris.

Currently under construction in the south-west of the city, this urban oasis will span approximately 14,000 sq metres (150695 sq feet) – also making it the largest urban farm in Europe. With the plan to grow more than 30 different plant species, the site will produce around 1,000kg of fruit and vegetables every day in high season. Tended by around 20 gardeners, they will also be using entirely organic methods.

“The goal is to make the farm a globally-recognised model for sustainable production,” says Pascal Hardy, founder of Agripolis, the urban-farming company at the centre of the project. “We’ll be using quality products, grown in rhythm with nature’s cycles, all in the heart of Paris.”

Located on the top of a major exhibition complex currently under redevelopment in the 15th arrondissement, the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, the farm will also have its own on-site restaurant and bar with capacity for around 300 people. Run by Paris’s renowned chain of rooftop venues, Le Perchoir, this aerial eatery will offer panoramic views over the capital – and, needless to say, the menu will feature seasonal produce grown on the site.

Community Farming

                                          Jona and Mary Conway with their children, Ambrose, Foxglove and Fabian. They run a four-acre                                                                smallholding, Purple Patch, at Watercress Farm. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Observer

Futuristic rooftop farming is a new trend, but some cities are adopting more traditional farming methods to supplement and/or supplant industrially farmed products.  In the English city of Bristol a community farming project has been going for the last decade.

Conway is one of the stars of a food phenomenon that has been developing in Bristol since the early 2010s. Back in 2009, the city council and a sustainability group, Bristol Green Capital Partnership, commissioned a report on what might happen to the city if the world began to run out of oil. One of the most alarming revelations was that the food supply, utterly dependent on cheap oil and gas for growing and transportation, could be severely depleted, which in turn could lead to a breakdown of law and order. In response, the NHS commissioned a report exploring Bristol’s food system in more depth, and the council helped set up a food policy council to produce a plan based on its findings.

One aim of that plan was “to promote the use of good quality land in and around Bristol for food production”. A number of support organisations – horticulturalists, conservationists and a Bristol chapter of the Incredible Edible “guerilla gardening” movement – worked with the policy council on this. At first, the focus was on straightforward ideas such as reviving allotments or encouraging container farms that used hydroponics and artificial lighting. But after a couple of years, the leaders of the initiative began to notice something else happening. More people than they had expected were contacting the organisations with ideas that combined social good and an interest in nature with growing, and these people seemed to have few problems finding volunteers to help with the schemes.

High Tech Farming

Urban farming is trendy and there are some social advantages that go along with some more marginal impact on greenhouse gases.  But, the future of farming isn’t on Paris rooftops or next the railroad tracks in Bristol.  The future of farming may well be in some laboratory at a place like MIT. 

At the same time, technological leaps in urban agriculture are attracting bright, science-minded youth in droves and paving the path for high-volume production in cities. We’re seeing vertical farms—controlled environment agriculture—get smarter and larger. These aren’t necessarily new methods, but we are reaching a point at which they are becoming more energy efficient and cost effective. At the most cutting edge are “agri-culturing” companies like Modern Meadow and Perfect Day, culturing meat from mammalian cells and fermenting milk from yeast, moving meat and dairy production into cities.

At the MIT Media Lab, where I run the Open Agriculture Initiative, we’re developing digital farming through what we call “the food computer.” Along with aeroponic technology, we use a network of sensors to monitor a plant’s water, nutrient, and carbon needs and deliver optimal light wavelengths—not just for photosynthesis but to change flavor. This allows us to recreate climates that yield, for example, the sweetest strawberries.

High Tech Ohio "Farm"

                                                                                                            Nick Graham

Some companies are starting to commercialize high tech, computerized soil free farming.  80 Acres Farms has moved from a “proof of concept” facility in Cincinnati to a much larger vertical farm just up the road in Hamilton, Ohio.

80 Acres Farms harvested its first crop of tomatoes in recent weeks in a space designed to be far more productive that its 12,000-square-foot Cincinnati location, something that was proof of concept, but isn’t at the scale it needs to be to “make a dent” in demand, according to Rebecca Haders, 80 Acres Farms’ vice president of creative and marketing. While the Cincinnati location has room for one “grow zone” for tomatoes, the downtown Hamilton location has room for 15 such areas. That, Haders said, means the ability to grow and harvest thousands of pounds of tomatoes each week.

Head grower Robert Norris walks through rows of tomato plants at 80 Acres Farms that is now operating in downtown Hamilton. They purchased the former Miami Motor Car Co. building on S. 2nd Street in February 2017 and have renovated it to create an indoor farm facility. The special pink colored lighting is controlled by a timer for optimal growing conditions.

“This is really our foray into commercialization,” Haders said during an exclusive first-look tour around the facility provided to this news outlet. “We could service a larger retailer at this point.”

Silicon Valley Meets the Central Valley

Maybe as a country we could actually be leaders in the development of high tech, hydroponic indoor farms.  A partner of 80 Acres Farms,Infinite Acres is working on a major vertical farm in China.

Technology that would be made in America to feed the world. 

"We are very pleased to be working with Infinite Acres on this project, which is part of a totally new and innovative horticultural development in the Shanghai region," said Yanwen Huang, chief executive officer of Orisis. "Orisis is partnering with Infinite Acres to fulfill the rapidly growing requirement of chemical-free and high-quality crops in China. This project will demonstrate to China and the rest of the world the indoor food-growing possibilities in densely-populated urban locations."

The Orisis farm will feature an internal, vertical design consisting of five layers and will have more than 1,600 square meters (more than 17,000 square feet) of grow zone area. Signify, the global leader in lighting will provide the Philips LED lighting for the Orisis grow zones; crop advice and help in developing the right growth recipes. This will be the first commercial project in the world based on Signify's Greenpower LED 3.0 production module.

 "With its growing mega-cities and shortage of arable farmland, China like other nations faces the challenges of providing healthy, fresh, just-picked produce to its people," said Tisha Livingston, chief executive officer of Infinite Acres. "Infinite Acres is excited about working with Orisis to develop what we hope will be the first of many indoor vertical farms in China."