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- Sunday Wrap-Up: New Funding Round Announcement, Groundbreaking Research & More Indoor Farming News
Sunday Wrap-Up: New Funding Round Announcement, Groundbreaking Research & More Indoor Farming News
Discover every Sunday a complete wrap-up of the week in the indoor farming sector.
This edition is sponsored by AgriHub & AmplifiedAg.
This Week’s Editorial
AmplifiedAg is a leading provider of modular, flexible, and scalable farming platforms empowering turnkey deployment, expansion ease, and variable crop production. Discover all the range of products they offer here.
This Week in Indoor Farming
The successful closing of GoodLeaf Farms’ financing round will support the company’s revolutionary, technology-driven indoor vertical farms’ development in Eastern and Western Canada. McCain Foods has increased its involvement in the $150 million capital issue, and a new collaboration with the specialist agri-food investor Power Sustainable Lios has also been formed. With this funding secured, GoodLeaf will expand across the country by building new farms in Calgary and the Montreal region in addition to its current fully automated, 50,000-square-foot farm in Guelph, Ontario. The national expansion will add to the more than 500 grocery stores and food service establishments in Ontario that already sell GoodLeaf goods by creating up to 140 new employment (70 in each area), many of which are skilled professions.
The brand-new GoodLeaf farms in Calgary and Montreal will be highly automated and furnished with the most cutting-edge equipment for agriculture in controlled environments. Each will have the capacity to generate about two million pounds of locally grown, fresh leafy greens annually. Late Q2 and early Q3 of 2023 will see the start of microgreens and baby greens production at both sites.
IUNU published a new report on the Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV) titled Learning to Live With ToBRFV. The report contains information on how ToBRFV spreads, how to detect ToBRFV, diagnostics for every stage of production, and more. Over the course of 2022, research using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies was carried out. The majority of North American commercial tomato producers were polled by IUNU horticulturists to gather data on loss, prevention, and opportunities.
As per the company’s press release, IUNU believes that “in order to truly empower producers, we must first hear their tales about threats like ToBRFV in the greenhouse”. In addition to conducting the poll, IUNU talked to producers and industry professionals about how ToBRFV is affecting their businesses, what resources they require, and how this virus has transformed the sector. The objective is to discuss various viewpoints, advocate for farmers, highlight industry advancements, offer useful tools, and identify crucial following actions for growing in this novel context.
The report is free and can be downloaded here. IUNU’s horticulturalists also created two supplemental items: a diagnostic testing matrix and a biosecurity checklist to help growers determine which testing is right for them and to strengthen their integrated pest and disease management (IPDM) programs. These supplemental materials are also included in the report.
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A completely functional vertical farm laboratory is being provided by AmplifiedAg for a global CEA wastewater research project, the indoor farming company announced in a press release. Gyeongsang National University (GNU) in South Korea and Clemson University in South Carolina are both involved in the research. Modular indoor farms have the potential to provide more sustainable food systems since they consume a great deal less water and can be combined with a closed-loop wastewater recycling technology.
According to Don Taylor, CEO of AmplifiedAg, “the initiative to repurpose wastewater into effective irrigation for indoor agriculture is an immensely significant area of concentration and we are happy to offer the technology to assist the effort. Given the fast-changing climate of our planet and the fact that many parts of the globe have poor access to resources and are unable to cultivate fresh food, we must work diligently and ingeniously to develop and preserve the food supply for both the present and the future. The continual advancement that technology permits is one of the things I find most fascinating about modern agriculture and CEA, and the work that Clemson and GNU are doing will offer insightful analysis and practical applications for both our business and the CEA sector as a whole.”
AmplifiedAg’s modular vertical farming format, advanced technology systems and cloud-based software continue to be selected as a platform for scientific research and education. The company is also the technology provider for the USDA-ARS CEA Center of Excellence where the agency is conducting extensive indoor farming research. The vertical farming lab will be delivered to Clemson University’s campus in the Spring of 2023 where the wastewater research project will be conducted.
Other News
Articles To Read
Growing next-gen indoor farmers through hands-on CEA education | a ZipGrow Article. Read more here.
FTX’s Odd Relationship With Vertical Farming Firms — A Look at Exchange Boss Ryan Salame’s and Bahamian PM Philip Davis’ Trip to 80 Acres | Bitcoin.com Read more here.
Investors have been supporting food tech long before the ‘boom’–and scary headlines won’t change our minds | Fortune.com | Read more here.
Black Sheep Foods grabs $12.3M to craft tastier plant-based meats | Techcrunch.com | Read more here.
Doehler Ventures invests in Clean Food Group’s palm oil alternative | Foodbev | Read more here.
Events To Attend
Environmental Sustainability of Commercial Urban Farms | An FAO Event. Read more here.
Future Food Summit in Malaysia: Closing The Food Gap. Read more here.
Indoor Ag Con Returns February 27-28 For Its 10th Edition. Read more here.
India International Horticulture Expo | Read more here.
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