Tag: hydroponics

Is It Possible to Grow Something on Every Rooftop?

Posted on by robbie

Urban farming innovations are cropping up throughout the country, but getting more people to grow their own greens is trickier than you think. That’s because personal farms take time, a lot of care and the right weather conditions.

But the California-based startup CityBlooms is looking to eliminate the fuss over urban agriculture and get more city-dwellers on board through its growbots — lightweight, hydroponic greenhouses that can fit into any odd-shaped rooftop or space. The modular unit uses cloud technology, so users can track their growth and control conditions such as irrigation, humidity and plant nutrition, Fast Company reports.

Aside from is ability to produce a large quantity of produce — think: tons of lettuce, not a baby tomato here and there — the growbots technology is incredibly mobile compared to other greenhouses. For example, some traditional systems may weight 50 pounds per square foot, whereas growbots are only between 15 to 17 pounds per square foot, making it much easier to outfit any rooftop.

“The modularity also gives us the ability to scale very easily,” says Nick Halmos, founder and CEO of Cityblooms.  “So we can size a farming installation appropriately to the demands and consumption patterns and profiles of the community that the farm is built to serve.”

CityBlooms’ technology also protects produce from exposure to air pollution and lead — which, as research has shown, is a problem with urban farming. A recent Cornell University study found unsafe levels of lead in nearly half of root vegetables and problems with air pollution, but Cityblooms’ system seals off the plants in a greenhouse and uses recirculated water.

The company contends it’s not trying to replace traditional farming, but contends that this version of farming could reduce food waste and keep produce closer to urban centers, while also freeing up farmland for other crops. The global population is anticipated to hit 9 billion by 2050, which means farmers will need to produce 70 percent more food while facing drought conditions and other costs, as Fast Company points out. As more city dwellers embrace urban farming, innovations like growbots could help alleviate some of that burden.

“We’ve tried to chart a course with our development that gives flexibility and ease of installation so we can get farming happening now,” Halmos says. “We’ve all seen the pictures of rooftop skyscrapers that grow food, and that’s a wonderful goal, but is that going to happen within the next 50 to 60 years? Maybe not. We’ve really been trying to identify the solutions that get us moving in the right direction.”

MORE: No Soil? Or Sun? This Urban Farm is Raising Fresh Food in a Whole New Way

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The Urban Farm That Is Soil-Free and Uses Virtually No Water

Posted on by robbie

Futuristic farms are not such a fantasy anymore, with dozens of projects cropping up around the country designing solutions to urban farming. The only problem? The costly price tag that comes with those initiatives.
Which is why CityFarm, born out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, is aiming to create a soil-free urban farming system that may be economically feasible for cities — regardless of locale. The 60-square-foot farm grows lettuce, tomatoes and herbs in a windowless room inside MIT’s Media Lab, Fast Company reports.
With no soil and the help of artificial light, the farm produces crops with as much as 90 percent less water than traditional methods.

“It’s essentially like a big, clear plastic box, about 7-feet wide by 30-feet long,” Caleb Harper, a research scientist leading the project, tells Fast Company. “Inside of that box, I have pre-made weather. I monitor everything,”

The system uses both hydroponic (water) and aeroponic (air or mist environment) soil-free processes to grow and has produced crops three to four times more quickly than the normal growth process. Using a 30-day cycle, CityFarm has produced food for 300 people.

“No one has proven an economically viable model for these kind of plant environments,” says Harper. “What I’m trying to do is kind of be the Linux for these environments — the person that creates the common language for this new area of food production.”

Harper believes his methodology could eventually reduce agricultural consumption of water by 98 percent and eliminate the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, double nutrient densities and reduce energy use to grow crops.

Harper first became interested in the idea after visiting Japan following the Fukushima disaster in 2011, prompting him to think about how cities could produce food without fear of contamination. Through CityFarm, Harper is developing a “plant operating system software” and looking for ways to make the process economically feasible for more cities.

CityFarm is working with Detroit to open the first off-campus version and continues plans to expand the MIT location vertically.

MORE: No Soil? Or Sun? This Urban Farm is Raising Fresh Food in a Whole New Way

Are Food Pantries the Future of Farming?

Posted on by robbie

There’s a very surprising secret sprouting inside a Brooklyn nonprofit’s food pantry.
Using the amazing technology of hydroponics, social organization CAMBA is able to feed fresh, local vegetables to 5,000 people who face food insecurity a month, Tree Hugger reports.
Their hydroponic farm was constructed right in their pantry’s walls and was completed last August. Already, the farm churns out about 80 heads of lettuce per week.
MORE: From Windowsills to Rooftops, Check Out the Rise of Urban Farming
As we’ve mentioned before, the beauty of hydroponics is that it requires no sunlight, arable land or soil. It also allows city dwellers to have year-round access to fresh vegetables even if they live thousands of miles away from traditional farms. “We are able to grow year round with no natural sunlight inside of our actual food pantry,” Janet Miller, a CAMBA Senior Vice President, told the website. Besides lettuce, they also grow bok choy, spinach, lettuce and herbs.
CAMBA’s very own hydroponic system is also giving the thousands of individuals they serve the opportunity to learn about healthier choices by holding classes on nutrition education and wellness. “It’s going to be a good learning experience, in and out of our pantry service,” said Lucila Santana, CAMBA’s Project Coordinator of the food pantry. “We’ll connect with the community through volunteer opportunities, open houses for school kids, food demonstrations and even free classes on hydroponics.”
With more and more dwellers moving away from farms to the cities, fresh food has to travel a lot farther to end up on people’s plates. But as CAMBA proves, if we can’t live on a farm, why not bring the farm to us?

Lettuce Think Differently About Farming in Cities

Posted on by robbie

Despite having a reputation for consuming a lot of junk food, Americans actually eat a lot of lettuce: 30 pounds of it each year, in fact. Behind potatoes, lettuce is the second most popular fresh vegetable.
We’d never tell you to stop eating your veggies but it’s very likely that the leafy greens you find at your local supermarket or salad bar have traveled quite the distance to end up on your plate. In fact, 90 percent of lettuce comes from California or Arizona — and unless you live on that side of the country, that’s kind of a problem.
So what’s the solution? In Atlanta, Ga., 2,000 miles away from America’s lettuce hub, local company PodPonics is growing lettuce right in the city’s backyard. In fact, the sprouting heads are located near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
MORE: From Windowsills to Rooftops, Check Out the Rise of Urban Farming
You’d think Atlanta’s sweltering heat, heavy traffic and densely populated sprawl wouldn’t be optimal for fresh greens, but the company is proving that notion wrong. Thanks to the incredible technology of hydroponics, PodPonics is growing (pesticide-and-fertilizer free!) lettuce all year round.
We’ve previously mentioned the nifty technology of hydroponics (and its fishy cousin aquaponics). The beauty of this growing method is that it requires no sunlight, arable land or soil. This means it can be set up just about anywhere — from basements to fish tanks. As you can see in the video below, PodPonics grows their greens in recycled railroad shipping containers.
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The company told NationSwell that inside each of these containers — or “pods” — is a controlled environment (consisting of patented PVC-pipe hydroponic systems, fluorescent lights, virtual systems that control the temperature and nutrients) that allows the plants to flourish year round.
ALSO: Check Out the Largest Rooftop Farm in the World
Impressively, the company said that each pod produces the equivalent of more than an acre of crops. They also have a turnover of crops 26 times a year, compared to traditional farms that have four crop turns a year.
Since its launch in 2010, PodPonics has already expanded to hundreds of local grocery stores. Hydroponics is a serious contender for the future of farming, and it’s coming at an important time for drought-weary states in the American Southwest (yes, such as California and Arizona). While it can be expensive to set up, it pays off in dividends in the long run. It’s been said that hydroponic systems use only around 10 percent of the water used for soil-based crops. Companies like PodPonics are proving that we can grow fresh, sustainable crops anywhere — regardless of the weather.
DON’T MISS: The Silver Lining to California’s Terrible Drought

Why There are 10,000 Fish Swimming in the Basement of This NYC School

Posted on by robbie

You’ve probably heard of schools building gardens, but one New York City school is taking farming to a whole new level. The Food and Finance High School in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood has installed huge tubs in its basement that hold 10,000 tilapia, genetically engineered to be able to live in fresh water. Philson Warner, a Cornell University scientist uses the lab to teach kids about aquaculture.
Aside from fish, Warner has installed a hydroponic lab in the school, where students learn how to grow cabbages, herbs and other produce in water. There are also 300 lobster and 1,500 shrimp under Warner’s care. According to DNA Info, the lab sells $120,000 in fish per year. The fish and produce are also used in the school cafeteria and donated to local hunger relief organizations.

How to Feed Our Swelling Cities

Posted on by robbie

By 2050, the United Nations predicts the world’s population will reach 9.6 billion people, 86 percent of whom will live in cities. With more mouths to feed in urban areas and less arable land, food shortages are a serious possibility. Enter vertical farming, which uses new technology to grow crops in vertically stacked racks. These urban greenhouses have been popping up all over the world, including in Scranton, Penn., New Scientist reports. The single story building being constructed right now by Green Spirit Farms will cover a mere 3.25 hectares, but will house about 17 million plants, including lettuce, spinach, kale, tomatoes, peppers, basil and strawberries. These plants are fed nutrients through hydroponic systems and grow year round because they sit in rotating racks that ensures exposure to light. Vertical farms have been heralded as the future of urban agriculture and a solution to farming in extreme weather. They also reduce the distance food has to travel to get to your plate, saving money and fuel. And because fresh fruits and vegetables would be so readily available, lower-income city dwellers would have greater access to nutritious foods. With vertical farming, the sky’s the limit.
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