Ireland’s AgTechUCD Innovation Centre has announced the eight start-ups selected to participate in University College Dublin’s new accelerator programme for early-stage AgTech and FoodTech start-up companies. They include developers of livestock and crop monitoring solutions, a sustainable fodder production system and an autonomous poultry robot which collects eggs. Commencing this week, the inaugural 2021 ‘Agccelerator’ Programme (see what they did there) will run as an intensive 12-week virtual programme. The fast-track schedule will include dedicated business development workshops and investor readiness training, mentoring from AgTech and FoodTech experts and business advisors, guest speakers and include facilitated introductions to AgTechUCD’s venture…
Author: Matt Peskett
Matt has worked in digital publishing and media for over two decades across the science, technology, food and agricultural sectors. With a lifelong passion for growing his own food, Matt also produces 300kg giant pumpkins for exhibition and volunteers with the Royal Horticultural Society. He has a sizeable horticultural social media presence and has been a finalist in the Garden Media Guild's blog of the year and social media awards. Matt also dabbles in start-up investment with companies like Small Robot Company, Drone Ag and RootWave.
California’s Advanced Farm Technologies, the first U.S. company to commercialise robotic strawberry harvesting, has closed a US$25 million Series B funding round. The funds will be used to support the company’s growth in strawberry picking and the adaptation of its technology for use in apple picking. Designed to work alongside manual harvest crews, the Advanced Farm TX Robotic Strawberry Harvester automatically senses and picks red, ripe fruit from in-soil strawberry beds with gentle, food-grade gripper technology. The purpose-built machine consists of multiple, rugged robots able to withstand harsh outdoor environments and in-soil conditions. Sophisticated computer vision and machine learning technology…
Next week (20-22 September 2021) Zenith Global’s 2021 Vertical Farming World Congress takes place online. This second Congress programme includes many of the industry leaders at the forefront of recent acquisition, funding and expansion announcements such as AeroFarms, Bowery, CubicFarm, IGS, Infarm, Kalera, Plenty, Vertical Future, YesHealth and 80 Acres. The event also features the inaugural 2021 Vertical Farming World Awards. These awards celebrate excellence and innovation across the global vertical farming industry, with entries received in sixteen categories spanning crops, technology, sustainability and commercial initiatives. The finalists and winners have been selected by an eminent panel of independent judges…
LettUs Grow, an indoor farming technology provider from Bristol, England, has teamed up with the University of York, & Spark:York to create ‘Grow It York’: a vertical, community farm at the heart of a vibrant container park in Piccadilly, York. The container park, called Spark:York, is a Community Interest Company using shipping containers to provide spaces for local restaurants, retailers and entrepreneurs. The farm forms part of the FixOurFood programme, a leading food systems research collaboration led by the University of York, funded for 5 years through the Transforming UK Food Systems Strategic Priorities Fund. FixOurFood aims to transform Yorkshire…
SVG Ventures | THRIVE is the leading global Agrifood investment and innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley. Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. This week the two companies announced the winners of their 2021 Sustainability Challenge. The Sustainable Startup Award was presented to US based company Haystack, the firm enables carbon market scalability by helping farmers and carbon markets quantify carbon accurately and cost-effectively. Haystack will receive a prize package that includes investment from SVG Ventures and a place in THRIVE’s award winning Accelerator Program, in addition to…
Vertical farming specialists Aerofarms and Nokia Bell Labs (the industrial research arm of Nokia) have been working together since 2020 to identify and track advanced plant interactions. Now the companies have extended their ground-breaking partnership after reaching the important milestone of achieving a proof of concept for a state-of-the-art integrated system and testing the technologies with AeroFarms’ current crop varieties. “AeroFarms’ expert team of plant scientists and engineers have been working together for two years with Nokia Bell Labs’ top researchers and engineers to train these complex learning systems with a nuanced understanding of plant biology.” says Roger Buelow, CTO…
Finnish vertical farming company iFarm has farms operating and under construction in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and CIS, with a total planting area of more than 30,000 square metres. Now in a partnership with Al Sadarah Group, a commercial-scale indoor farm will grow leafy greens, strawberries and edible flowers in Qatar. The partnership will help Qatar reduce its heavy reliance on food imports and bring the country closer to achieving the goal of achieving 70% self-sufficiency in food production by 2023, as outlined in Qatar’s National Food Security Strategy. The first phase of the Al Sadarah / iFarm partnership…
UK firm LettUs Grow, an indoor farming technology provider, has partnered with Harper Adams University to trial different technologies and irrigation systems within greenhouse and vertical farming settings. Harper Adams University is the UK’s leading specialist university for the agri-food and rural business sectors. With a growing world population and changing climate, it’s never been more crucial to intensify food production in a sustainable way. All forms of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) – both greenhouses and vertical farms offer the opportunity to grow all year round, through adverse weather conditions or in extreme climates, and reduce the need for pesticides…
iFarm (Intellectual Farms Oy) is a Helsinki-based international company that develops solutions, platforms, and technologies for indoor farming and agribusiness. Recently iFarm’s engineers began designing a custom vertical farm that could flourish inside the body of a commercial aeroplane, with the potential to extend the life of decommissioned aircraft. Experts from iFarm were approached by a European airline with the brief. In response they proposed converting a passenger plane’s cabin into a salad bar and designed a vertical farm with a total growing area of 135 m² in the aft section of the aircraft so that the bar can offer 14…
Since its foundation in 2010, US-based IoT specialist Monnit has developed over eighty IoT Sensors which provide remote monitoring solutions for a wide range of industry applications. Adding to its existing monitoring sensors for greenhouses (to measure light, humidity, CO2 and temperature) and for livestock (for measuring indoor air flow), the company has launched the ALTA® Soil Moisture Sensor. The ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor alerts farmers, horticulturists and agronomists direct to their mobile device or computer about how much, when, and where to water their plants or crops. This new Monnit IoT Sensor provides a solution to instantly improve irrigation scheduling…
