Author: Anthony James

A brand new US agtech firm based in New Mexico is on a mission to replace conventional pesticides that are damaging the environment and linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s, birth defects, and other serious health issues. Newly founded Terra Vera says it offers innovative solutions to replace conventional pesticides and increase product safety and consumer confidence within the agriculture industry. Using patented technologies compliant with EPA regulations, Terra Vera says its product is a safe, effective, and sustainable alternative to help farmers rid crops of contaminants, while preserving quality and yield. Unwanted pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi can cause…

The Israel Innovation Authority has awarded a US$400,000 grant to Israeli precision irrigation company Viridix, to enhance the remote sensing and AI capabilities of its RooTense® solution, which the company claims can increase crop yields by 20% while reducing water and fertilizer usage up to 50%. The funding will also be used to scale production and distribution. Viridix began with a very innovative sensor technology used to measure soil moisture. Through pairing with the latest software to understand the type of plant, age of the plant and soil type, Viridix says it can better respond to crop needs and apply the optimal amount of…

Vertical farming company Kalera continues to rapidly expand across the US, announcing new facilities in Columbus, Ohio, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Both are scheduled to open in 2021. Kalera’s Ohio facility will be ideally placed to provide the Midwest’s grocers, restaurants, theme parks, airports, schools and hospitals with reliable access to clean, safe, nutritious, price-stable, long-lasting vertically grown greens. The facility is expected to create approximately 65 jobs. The company’s new Hawaiian location, its eighth announced so far, will be the largest vertical farming operation in the island state, providing approximately 60 jobs to the local community upon opening. Growing millions…

Rather unsurprisingly, technology has come out on top in a competition between the latest agtech disciplines and traditional farming methods, to see which was better at growing strawberries. As a result, the first ever Smart Agriculture Competition, organised by Pinduoduo Inc, China’s largest agtech platform that connects millions of agricultural producers with consumers across the country, has only further boosted the company’s credentials as a means to raise productivity and increase food security. The competition saw four technology teams employ data analysis, intelligent sensors and greenhouse automation to produce an average of 6.86kg of strawberries – 196% more than the…

Advanced materials company, UbiQD Inc, which has developed a highly versatile, ‘quantum-dot’ nanomaterial that is capable of manipulating colour and concentrating light, has raised US$7 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Scout Ventures and Keiretsu Forum. UbiQD partner, Nanosys, also joined the round as a strategic investor. The company has developed a proprietary, patent-protected formulation of quantum dots that is safer, more cost-effective, and more durable than any existing alternative. As a result, the material has a wide variety of applications – including boosting crop productivity in greenhouses. With an initial focus on controlled environment agriculture, UbiQD…

Swegreen, a vertical farming innovation venture based in Stockholm, has received a SEK9.1 million (US$1 million) investment from Vinnova – the Swedish government agency that administers state funding for research and development. The funding will allow the company, along with research partners RISE and Mälardalen University, to further expand its platform for AI-driven vertical farming, and to evolve a digitalised supply chain from farm to fork. Together Swegreen, Mälardalen University and RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) will begin work on a new project, called ‘AIFood’, currently scheduled to run for two years. The project will focus on a proof of…

Grōv Technologies has revealed its latest innovation in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) – the Olympus Tower Farm. Utilising micro-sensors, big data and science-based growing protocols, the Olympus Tower Farm is an automated indoor growing system for commercial scale production of fresh animal feed, aimed at dairy and beef producers seeking more sustainable and economically viable feed solutions. Grōv’s team of botanists, animal nutritionists and engineers have spent years developing science and technology-based growing protocols for Olympus, which produces unmatched high-density nutrient (HDN) feed, and in trials has shown to provide health benefits for the animals and improved feed-to-yield efficiency. These…

Three innovative companies are set to benefit from funding provided by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) in a bid to boost the emirate’s agtech capabilities across land, sea and space. Pure Harvest Smart Farms (Pure Harvest), FreshToHome and Nanoracks will receive financial and non-financial incentives totalling AED152 million (US$41 million). The competitive incentive packages include rebates on innovation-linked high-skilled payroll, high-tech CAPEX, as well as land, utility and intellectual property support. The resulting research and technologies developed by these companies will expand existing capabilities in Abu Dhabi’s agtech ecosystem and promote innovation in the sector to address global food…

Two emerging players in the vertical farming sector have announced plans to open new facilities: &ever Singapore Pte Ltd (previously Farmers Cut Pte Ltd), a fully owned subsidiary of German-based &ever GmbH, will construct and operate a 15m-high, multi-layer, vertical farm in the Asian city state, while fenaco National Products, a strategic business unit of the fenaco cooperative, and the ETH Zurich spinoff YASAI plan to build an industrial-scale vertical farming pilot project in Zurich, Switzerland. Singapore to ramp up local production Amid the global food supply challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) launched a…

Leading berry producer Driscoll’s has signed a deal with San Francisco-based indoor vertical-farming specialist Plenty Unlimited Inc that will see the latter grow Driscoll’s proprietary strawberries year-round in its vertical indoor farms. The two companies will work together to optimise the flavour, texture, size and availability of the strawberries grown, leveraging the benefits of a controlled growing environment. The partnership also paves the way for berry expansion into regions that have historically been difficult to serve. Plenty will incorporate Driscoll’s proprietary genetics and berry expertise into its advanced, indoor farming technology using its plant science expertise. Using data analytics, machine learning and customised lighting,…