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High-Rise Farming: Valcent Products
As cities explode and farmland shrinks, Vancouver’s Valcent Products introduces a high-rise solution to the looming global need for local, healthy food: indoor, vertical, hydroponic farming.
Bathed in the diffused light and oxygen-rich smell of a greenhouse, the faint trickle of nutrient-primed water mixes with the hum and click of a conveyor as a hundred hanging racks of white plastic trays, stacked 12 high and tufted with thousands of leafy green plants, glide around the room. A couple of technicians check the logic control centre’s climate control readings for the bar-coded flora, which nearly ready for harvest. Banks of LED lights slowly brighten to augment the dwindling natural light for an optimal 18-hour growing day.
Sounds like the opening scene of a sci-fi movie or futuristic paperback, but this is non-fiction. Vancouver-based Valcent Products is out to revolutionize agriculture with a mechanized, self-contained, high-density, vertical grow-op system for vegetable and herbs that uses only 8% of the normal amount of water and 5% of the usual space. Practically any space.
“This is what farming has to develop into,” says Christopher Ng, Valcent’s Chief Operating Officer. “Much as high-density, high-rise apartments came about, we have to go vertical with food production too. Given that the world’s population will be 9 billion in 2050, and mostly in dense urban centres, how else are we going to grow the amount of food we’ll need?”
GROWING UP
The key is vertical, high-density growing. With a base VertiCrop commercial growing system of 123 hanging racks of hydroponic trays measuring 12ft high, two or three people can run a 4,000ft2 growing space, with another 2,000ft2 for germinating, transplanting, harvesting and packing as many as 10,000 plants every three days. With this base system, a space the size of a decent residential lot can produce as much as a 16-acre farm. Free of pesticides and herbicides.
With its small footprint, minimal water requirements and low energy needs, an automated unit can be located in climates ranging from an arid desert to the remote Arctic; or in urban settings like rooftops and brown field sites – even inside a disused warehouse with the system’s optional supplementary lighting units.
Applying Henry Ford’s assembly line revolution to vertical farming is a compelling concept on the cusp of international acceptance, with Western cities, Middle Eastern governments and Asian urban planners poised to place their orders for the technology.
As the Chief Supply Chain Officer for the athletic apparel phenomenon lululemon, Ng was responsible for that company’s supply chain, manufacturing, distribution logistics and technology. Now he says he moved from yoga and running outfits to hydroponic lettuce on the strength of the idea. “I heard the story of what Valcent was up to and I thought it was something I’d like to do for my own satisfaction, and for my kids and future generations. I saw this and thought, Here’s something that’s going to make a difference in the world.”
The need is looming. Consider the imploding US cities where grocery chains no longer operate and obesity and diabetes are rampant. Or northern communities with sky-high grocery prices and resulting nutritional imbalances. Or arid regions with water shortages or food security issues. Or the world’s sprawling and expanding mega-cities where there isn’t a green space for miles on end.
“With high-density vertical hydroponics, you’re not wasting water, polluting land or streams with agri-chemicals, and you’re using way less space. With the abundance of brown field sites and user-abandoned facilities in centres such as Detroit, Phoenix and just about any large city in North America right now, there are warehouses available for next-to-nothing, this is a great re-use strategy for those facilities.”
THE NEXT FARM?
For Ng, this isn’t just hyperbole or rarefied futurecasting. “Think about the food-miles, the energy and carbon with reefer trucks hauling heads of lettuce thousands of kilometres. Then there’s the sorting, handling, distribution, re-distribution and stocking before it reaches consumers. We know from research at the University of California, Davis, that lettuce loses roughly half its nutritional value in 96 hours at 20?C. So there’s a legitimate issue of food quality, taste and nutrition. Local, high-density, vertical farming can greatly improve freshness and food quality when you’re talking about one day versus one week.
“With our technology, you can locate right in the midst of your market and cut out a lot of middlemen, time, energy and expense. And the availability, quality and freshness can be guaranteed.”
The other side is that the self-contained system can guarantee supply and price. We all know what happens to prices when there’s a freeze in Florida or a dry season in California. And alternating droughts and floods have been disrupting farms from Adelaide to Winnipeg.
The system is also more efficient in terms of workflow. Because the conveyor brings the plants to the workers, water and light, the base configuration can be run by as few as one horticulturist and two “green collar” assistants.
VIABLE + FEASIBLE
The VertiCrop system looks like a viable solution to a growing global problem, but innovative systems are typically expensive to implement – it still comes down to economics, markets and feasibility. Fortunately, according to Ng, the numbers are there. “Actually, the economics are unbelievable: With roughly a million-dollar investment, $1.1million at best, a single unit can provide up to 190,000 lbs of leafy greens in a year, yielding $1.3million in revenue,” says Ng. “We calculate annual earnings, before interest, taxes and amortization, of about $600,000.”
The VertiCrop system represents a paradigm shift, and those don’t come easy. Ng concedes that moving vertical farming from intriguing concept to commercial acceptance has been a challenge. “This isn’t just a novel growing method though – we believe this is the way farming must go.
“We have a lot of Middle Eastern countries very interested in our technology from a water and food security point of view, and many large western cities for health policy and general sustainability – the biggest challenge is getting the first one out there. And we’re on the cusp of a number of significant sales. Then the floodgates will open for sales.”
Valcent’s first, and high-profile, pilot project was installing a VertiCrop system to produce food for animals at the Paignton Zoo in Devon, England – Europe’s first commercial vertical farming operation. Since then, an unnamed UK food processing company has been running trials with the system and “they are very pleased with the results, which will lead to an unknown number of VertiCrop system purchases,” says Ng.
INTERNATIONAL REACH
The vertical farming concept, including research and design, and proof of concept, was undertaken in the UK. Development and commercialization evolved and Valcent’s UK subsidiary continues to refine various aspects of the system, such as tray design, lighting sources, irrigation filtration, nutritional inputs (including organic) and crop types – they now have demonstrable success with nearly 70 varieties of vegetables and herbs.
Ng points out that vertical hydroponics are not going to replace all farming techniques – it doesn’t work well for root vegetables, vines or grains. “You’re still going to see miles of wheat and acres of strawberries, but high-quality leafy greens are a much-needed, high-growth sector. As things stand, it looks like the first commercial crop to come off the system will be basil.”
Valcent Products Inc.
Vancouver BC
604-535-5474
valcent.net
Stock symbol, over-the-counter: OTCFF – VCTZF
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