#hydroponic farming

Austin-based design firm Argodesign is betting on the latter. As a thought experiment, the studio mocked up a provocative series of concepts suggesting what an Amazon Foods could look like, if powered by drones, Echo refrigerators, and a sharing economy model reminiscent of Airbnb or Uber.

[Illustration: courtesy Argodesign]

MEET THE ECHO FRIDGE

Right now, you might order groceries through your Echo personal assistant, or reorder something through an Amazon Dash button. These items might arrive in a few hours or a few days. But what if Amazon/Whole Foods could move its stock from distribution centers and store shelves to your shelves, predictively, and adaptively?

That’s the idea of the Echo Fridge. It has an exterior-facing door. In suburban houses, it’s large, allowing a small vehicle to pull up. In urban areas, it’s a box about the size of an AC unit. Through this door, the fridge would take deliveries of food Amazon believes you will want. But you don’t pay for them unless you use them.

On the kitchen side of the Echo Fridge, you might see two doors. The door on the right would have Amazon’s suggested items, ready to eat. Move them to the left door–your personal space–and they’d be purchased automatically. Leave them, and they might be removed, delivered to a neighbor who wants that bag of oranges or bottle of ketchup.

“When we started looking at the whole problem, we started from the high level: improving distribution through robotics, and this centerpiece idea of making the refrigerator the point of sale,” says Mark Rolston, founder of Argodesign. “If you start with that point of logic, because of improved distribution, availability of robotics, and support of drones, you start to realize, the inventory in the store starts to not really matter. And the store doesn’t matter as it does today to host inventory.”

This is the fundamental shift of the concept–the store is no longer the store. Your home is now the store. And while, yes, it’s a slightly unsettling thought to not own everything in your fridge, where Argodesign takes this idea empowers the individual–as much as it enslaves them to Amazon’s will.

[Illustration: courtesy Argodesign]

THE GARAGE GARDEN

If self-driving cars take over, fewer people will probably own cars, and there’s a good chance that the average suburban household will suddenly have an open room in their garage. Here, Argodesign imagines what they call “Whole Foods Produce As Service.” For a monthly fee, you get a hydroponic system, with hardware owned and maintained by Amazon, and an employee comes by every few weeks to prune your garden.

You take what you like–and possibly pay a subsidized price for the fresh tomatoes and herbs. The rest is sold in a hyperlocal farmers’ market. Much like your fridge shares unopened milk, your garden would share ripe veggies that would otherwise go uneaten.

[Illustration: courtesy Argodesign]

“Everyone thinks Amazon is the big dog, and it will just gut the [Whole Food] stores,” says Jared Ficklin, creative technologist and partner at the firm. “I doubt that. I think Whole Foods will have an influence as well.” In a best-case scenario, that influence would tap Whole Foods’ ability to source regional produce, but at the extreme scale. Local fresh would no longer constitute a farm 100 miles away. Local fresh would be turnips grown by someone in your cul-de-sac.

“If Amazon is doing this successfully, it’s kind of scary. I could imagine a reader saying, ‘Holy shit, you want Amazon to be wholly in charge of what you eat?” says Rolston.

“No, we want Whole Foods to be in charge of what you eat!” says Ficklin.

“We want to plug into this system,” says Rolston. “It’s [Amazon’s] infrastructure. But it’s for us, feeding ourselves. Their infrastructure allows us to share our food in a more productive way.”

[Illustration: courtesy Argodesign]

UNLOC FOOD SCANNER

In what is by far the most science fiction-y idea in this bunch, Argodesign takes food sharing to its ultimate conclusion. With the Unloc Food Scanner, not only could you grow produce for your neighbors, you could cook meals for them, too.

Amazon would be something like Blue Apron crossed with Airbnb–for dinner, “right down to finding the person in your neighborhood [who] makes amazing Indian food to get them 20 customers,” says Ficklin.

The scanner would be loaded with a mass spectrometer, capable of looking at a dish to spot allergens and pathogens. Each package would be like a mini FDA, that could ensure a home-cooked dish from four doors down was safe for you to eat.

“We thought of this Tupperware container that scans the food and nutritional value, and it occurred to us, if you had something like that, you could usurp the packaged food industry,” says Ficklin. “A lot of work goes into food safety rather than nutrition. If you ever tried to sell something at a farmers’ market, you realize you’re up against big government. With a container like this, you could decide to sell your amazing Waldorf salad to neighbors, and they could know that there are no peanuts in it.”

It’s a wild idea, yes, but it’s also an excellent example of how a company with limitless resources, and motivation to ship things as little as possible to save money and expedite delivery times, could actually empower hyperlocal eating. (It could be a fun way to meet your neighbors, too.)

“What do people do in their lives when automation takes away so much of the manual craft we spend our time doing?” Rolston ponders aloud. “It could turn life into the Etsy of everything, the bespoking of the most ordinary aspects of living. Maybe, rather than keeping us away from each other, stronger data systems help us get closer to each other.”

[Illustration: courtesy Argodesign]

THE AMAZON BIN

For the final item in the concept brief, Amazon would leverage its network not to deliver your food but to take your trash.

Maybe you’ve tried something Amazon has sent you, and you didn’t like it at all. But all Amazon sees is that you consumed it. How does Amazon learn what you like, and what you don’t–as passively as possible?

For this, Argodesign suggests the Amazon Bin. It’s a garbage can with two holes. One says reorder. One says don’t. Anything going in is scanned, and so Amazon learns your preferences by your garbage.

But the much bigger play is what Argodesign has dubbed “waste as service.” They postulate that Amazon can create a revenue stream out of recyclables, while rewarding users for better habits. An apple thrown out whole might, at the end of the month, cost the user more than one that is eaten. But that same user might get a credit for recycling a can of consumed Diet Coke. At scale, it would be a mindless way for consumers to be greener, allowing Amazon to recycle and compost their goods. And it might lead to some earned back cash, too.

[Illustration: courtesy Argodesign]

A DISQUIETING FUTURE? MAYBE

As irresistible as it may be to open your fridge and see a gleaming produce aisle that’s been automatically, algorithmically delivered staring back at you, of course it’s all equally unsettling, too. Do I really want to buy milk that was stored in my neighbor’s fridge? Wouldn’t I be crazy to let Amazon catalog how much of that Snickers bar I actually ate? Who in their right mind would allow a big corporation to install their own garden in their precious garage?

“Isn’t Etsy proof enough?” Rolston asks. “For Airbnb, Uber, Etsy, the initial reaction was always more abstracted, divorced from the moment of value. ‘I’m not getting in some stranger’s car! I’m not buying random shit from a neighbor down the street! I’m not staying in a stranger’s house! And then, ‘okay!’–it becomes a thing.”

Ficklin chimes in. “I think the argument you’re making is very similar to the privacy argument, where people are creeped out to give privacy to get features,” he says. “But you know what consumers do every time? They give up privacy to get features! People still say, ‘This is gross and creepy!’ but they immediately do it because it’s easier and better.”

Digging beds on rooftops and harvesting baby radishes under the summer sun is rather 2010. This year, Blue Planet Consulting released its +farm — a build-it-yourself, modular hydroponic farm unit for the home. Agrilyst is refining its workflow and data management software for indoor farms to automate aspects of the industry. Re-Nuble brought its fertilizer for hydroponic and soil applications derived from wholesale food waste to market in late 2016.

The agriculture technology industry (agtech for short) has seen extraordinary growth in Brooklyn in the past several years. Local entrepreneurs are pushing the boundaries of what urban agriculture looks like despite the fact that New York appears an unexpected home for such disruption in farming space. Nevertheless, Brooklyn has become a fertile environment for the future of food.

But why Brooklyn and not, say, Bakersfield?

It started with farm-to-table. Eaters borough-wide (and further afield) started thinking about where food comes from. Michael Pollan pleaded citizens to “vote with your fork.” “Local” food rose to — and perhaps surpassed — the level of “organic.”

Consumers began to embrace what industry leaders like Dan Barber and Alice Waters had espoused for decades: Where food comes from matters. And Brooklyn has necessary ingredients like the intersection of passionate chefs and a thriving network of farms.

“It’s hard not to be inspired by that pulsing entrepreneurial spirit,” Meg Savage, head of business development at food mag Edible told Technical.ly. “This is a community that cares about it’s food and where it is coming from … and longing for more advances.”

Edenworks microgreens. (Courtesy photo)

For businesses in the agtech space, the consumer and demand side provides plentiful momentum for continued growth and innovation.

“Rather than having a burden on the food system creating this large carbon footprint of having to bring food from as far as California, people are interested in how can we grow the same thing here,” Tinia Pina, founder of the organic fertilizer company Re-nuble said in an interview.

But operators — the industry word for farmers — in the agtech space are thinking about supply, too. Projections suggest the global population will exceed 9.7 billion by 2050. With New York City populations predicted to grow 9.5 percent by 2040, many agtech companies are focused on how to provide fresh and healthy food in ever more dense urban environments. “There is definitely a need to have more resource efficient localized production, distribution and consumption of resources related to food,” said Pina.

Most companies growing high-tech crops focus on leafy greens and fresh herbs. In New York, this makes sense, suggested Allison Kopf, founder of Agrilyst. “We have an interesting agricultural economy where it is a really big agricultural state. But the things that New York can specialize in year-round is very limited because of the climate and different sort of seasonality.”

The first agtech companies cropped up in Brooklyn in the 2009–2011 period. Industry leaders like EdenWorks, Gotham Greens and AeroFarms played a key role in laying the groundwork for innovation. “Smaller companies are following suit based on the population and population needs,” said Liz Vaknin, cofounder of Our Name is Farm, a digital and experiential marketing company. “In general, Brooklyn is an open-minded type of place to test out concepts.”

Seeds. (Photo courtesy of @oneminutemeal)

The result is something like an ecosystem.

“Once you have investors and customers then you have technology companies that are interested in selling products to that industry,” said Kopf. “You have companies like us and others sprouting up. A lot of it had to do with the market opportunity that is New York and the supporting resources that needed to exist just sort of do exist [here].”

And ample room for innovation and development remains.

Agtech is still young. Many of the companies involved are just a few years old, if that. Excitement from investors is growing, but solid investment requires education and transparency.

“There is definitely room for more collaboration between operators,” said Re-Nuble’s Pina. “It’s hard, each farm has its own intellectual property that they’re trying to keep defensible so they can raise money. But in driving conversation with local stakeholders at the municipal and corporate levels, we need to work together to show how we can make the supply chain more sustainable.”

Funding is a major concern across the board. “We need intelligent capital especially on the loan side,” said Kopf of Agrilyst. “This is a massive infrastructure investment — far too often farms are trying to secure venture capital. But then banks have to understand the technology. Traditional farm loans don’t work the same way yet.”

Local policymakers are beginning to catch on. The Brooklyn Borough President’s office just announced $2 million in funding for an urban agriculture incubator. Further public infrastructure involvement could be a game changer. “If government money is available, the terms are going to be different than private equity money or venture capital funds,” said Vaknin. “All together, that kind of creates a perfect storm for robust growth.”

Edenworks microgreens. (Courtesy photo)

CONTENT SOURCED FROM TECHNICAL.LY

Ajay: 1000 sq ft growing area.

Andrew: Last question, How many levels high are your grow racks?

Ajay: 6 levels

What follows is the original The Better India piece:

“You are what you eat,” they say. And that’s what Ajay Naik, a Goa-based hydroponic farmer, believes in. After quitting his job and giving up his company, this software engineer decided to help farmers across India learn about hydroponics and the use of technology in agriculture.

“For several years I have been noticing that many farmers’ children prefer to go for an MBA or engineering degree these days instead of taking up farming. This is because agriculture is not always lucrative. But then, not many of us are focusing on the root of the system we live in – that is good quality food. Only when you have healthy food can you have a healthy country,” says Ajay Naik, a Goa-based software engineer-turned hydroponic farmer. In times like these when the younger generation of farmers choose to opt for anything but agriculture, the case of Ajay would seem to be a paradox of sorts. The 32-year-old has turned to hydroponic farming in an attempt to grow quality food  because a lot of vegetables and fruits supplied to markets today are grown using harmful chemicals that are detrimental to health.

He believes that the right use of technology can improve a field’s produce but the problem is that Indian farmers are already struggling with finances and are reluctant to take risks “They fear that if their investment in technology does not work out, it may lead to huge losses,” he says. Ajay wants to change the equation by taking technology to as many farmers as he can. And that is where hydroponics comes into the picture.

Hydroponics is the process of growing plants in water with added nutrients without the use of soil.

What attracted Ajay towards this form of agriculture is that it limits the use of chemicals. After initial research he came to know about a person in Pune who has a doctorate in plant nutrition and manages a hydroponic farm. Ajay met him, saw his farms and learned as much as he could.

“It was inspiring and motivated me to start a farm of my own as well. The fact that hydroponics involves technology, like developing a system for automatic circulation of water, controlling the parameters of temperature, humidity, etc. made me like it even more. I have been working in the IT industry for the past 10 years and I understand these things. In fact, it would have been difficult for me to understand traditional forms of agriculture,” he says.

Fully equipped with the required knowledge, Ajay started his farm two months ago in Karaswada, Goa. With a team of six people, he now grows exotic vegetables like lettuce and salad greens using the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT). This is a hydroponic technique in which a shallow stream of water containing nutrients for plant growth circulates past the bare roots of plants in watertight cylindrical tubes also called channels. The water flows from one end and is re-circulated into the system from the other end, thus reducing water consumption by 80% when compared to traditional farming.

Since there is no soil involved in the process, there is no need for pesticides. Ajay has set up his system in a vertical farming model with racks that have seven levels to save space.

He claims that this is Goa’s first vertical hydroponics farm, which occupies an area of 150 square metres. “I grow three tonnes of lettuce every month. The farm is set up in a controlled environment that enables me to grow exotic vegetables all-year-round without being dependent on the weather,” he says. In addition, he is now trying to convince other farmers to adopt this technology. “I have already started showing the technique to farmers in vegetable expositions conducted by the agriculture department in different places in Goa. The department is also keen on collaborating with me so they can take it to more farmers,” he says. Other than this, he sells his produce to local vendors and also in supermarkets. “I am planning to grow bell pepper, cucumber and strawberries too. In the future, I would also like to shift to other hydroponics techniques and increase the produce,” he adds.

Originally from Karnataka, Ajay came to Goa to work with a software company, which he quit in 2011 to start his own enterprise to develop mobile applications.

He then sold his company this year and used his savings to start this farm. He also received help from two investors. While the initial cost of setting up the farm is high, Ajay feels that he will be able to recover it over a period of time with hydroponics farming because of the high turnover.

“Producing food nowadays is becoming a real challenge. With the increasing population, water scarcity, and the ecological impact of transportation, hydroponics is the best choice for commercial as well as home-based farming. Among many advantages, hydroponics allows you to produce more (20 to 30%) high-quality vegetables and fruits, save on water and nutrient consumption, and grow fresh food everywhere – including sterile and unproductive lands, or in big cities and capitals. It helps cutting down on expensive intermediaries and shipping costs,” he concludes.

You can contact Ajay by writing to him at [email protected]