The word ‘farm’ usually evokes certain images. You might visualize vast open fields stretching toward the horizon, dotted with rows of crops or grazing animals. A red barn with a pitched roof, a silo standing nearby, and perhaps a tractor parked beside a weathered fence. We’re trying to broaden the definition, and give people the ability to farm in places that historically have not been able to support agriculture for one reason or another. With continuing climate shifts and general uncertainty regarding our ability to properly feed a fast-growing global population, our ag technology can provide a lifeline by introducing sustainable, hyperlocal food production wherever it’s needed. Watch the video about small-scale farming being an option, even for those who have no experience in agriculture.
Tag: agriculture
The Long-Term Impacts of Indoor Agriculture
Container farming, a version of indoor farming also known as vertical farming, involves growing crops in controlled environments within shipping containers or other enclosed spaces. The advent of this technology, which relies on sensors to control the growing parameters, holds a lot of promise, especially as climate shifts continue to farmers and ranchers in traditional settings. While it’s difficult to predict the future with absolute certainty, it’s now possible identify several potential long-term impacts of container farming.
Sustainable agriculture: Container farming offers a more sustainable and efficient way to grow crops compared to traditional outdoor agriculture. By using less land, water, and pesticides, it can help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. This could lead to a decrease in deforestation, habitat destruction and the use of harmful chemicals that end up in our food and drinking supply.
Local Food Production: Container farming allows for year-round production of fresh produce, regardless of the local climate. This can reduce the need for long-distance transportation of food and promote local food systems. It may also help address food security and reduce the carbon footprint associated with food distribution.
Improved Resource Efficiency: Container farms can make more efficient use of resources like water, energy, and space. They often use hydroponic or aeroponic systems, which consume less water than traditional soil-based farming. Advanced climate control and LED lighting systems can optimize energy use. Colorado-based FarmBox Foods uses pre-insulated to help energy draws.
Food Security: Container farming can play a crucial role in ensuring a stable food supply in areas with food scarcity or those affected by natural disasters. The ability to control growing conditions can help mitigate the effects of climate change and other environmental challenges.
Job Creation: The container farming industry is growing, creating jobs in areas such as plant science, engineering, data analysis, business planning, and farm management. This can contribute to local and regional economic development.
Technology Advancements: As container farming technologies continue to evolve, they may lead to breakthroughs in agriculture, such as improved crop genetics, pest and disease management, and data-driven decision-making. These advancements are expected to benefit traditional agriculture as well.
Reduced Food Waste: By enabling on-demand production and minimizing transportation distances, container farming can help reduce food waste — currently a significant global issue — because food arrives on the plates of consumers much sooner after being harvested.
Educational Opportunities: Container farming can serve as a valuable educational tool, teaching people about plant biology, technology, and sustainable farming practices. Schools, universities, and community organizations use container farms to engage students and the public, including the South Carolina Governor’s School of Science and Math, Delaware State University, the EPIC Campus in Littleton, Colo., and more to come. 
Space Exploration: Container farming concepts have been explored for space missions, such as Mars colonization, where growing food in a controlled environment is essential due to harsh environmental conditions. Research in this area may have applications for future space exploration.
The long-term impact of container farming is likely to be positive, with the potential to transform agriculture, reduce its environmental footprint, and address food security issues. But it will depend on continued technological advancements, cost reductions and successful integration into existing food production systems for it to make a sizable impact as we head into an uncertain agricultural future.
Farmers Adapting to Changing Times and Conditions
The shifting climate is having a big impact on the agricultural sector, and farmers around the world are being forced to adapt to numerous challenges. Here are some of the challenges that farmers are facing due to climate change:
- Changing weather patterns: Climate change is causing shifts in weather patterns, leading to extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, and storms. These changes can damage crops, reduce yields, and affect the timing of planting and harvesting.
- Water scarcity: Changing rainfall patterns can result in water scarcity, making it harder for farmers to irrigate their crops. This can lead to reduced yields and even crop failure.
- Increased pests and diseases: Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns can lead to the proliferation of pests and diseases that can damage crops and reduce yields.
- Soil degradation: Climate change can cause soil degradation, making it less fertile and less able to support healthy crops. This can result in lower yields and reduced food quality.
- Reduced biodiversity: Climate change is causing shifts in ecosystems, which can reduce biodiversity and disrupt natural pollination cycles, leading to lower crop yields.
- Financial pressures: Climate change can lead to increased costs for farmers, such as higher irrigation costs, increased pest management expenses, and greater investments in technology and infrastructure to adapt to changing conditions.
What Can We Do?
- Promote sustainable farming practices: Encouraging sustainable farming practices such as conservation agriculture, crop rotation, and agroforestry can help to improve soil health and reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides. This can also help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
- Develop and promote drought-resistant crops: Developing crops that are more tolerant of drought conditions can help farmers adapt to changing rainfall patterns and reduce water usage.
- Improve water management: Improved water management techniques, such as drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting, can help farmers to conserve water and reduce the impact of droughts.
- Expand access to climate information: Providing farmers with access to reliable climate information can help them make better decisions about when to plant, what crops to grow, and how to manage their farms.
- Support research and development: Investing in research and development to improve agricultural productivity, develop new crop varieties, and enhance soil health can help farmers adapt to changing conditions and improve their resilience.
- Provide financial support: Providing financial support, such as subsidies or insurance, can help farmers to manage the financial risks associated with climate change and adopt new practices.
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture through practices such as conservation tillage, improved nutrient management, and the use of renewable energy can help to mitigate the impact of climate change on agriculture.
FarmBox Foods CEO Rusty Walker Among ‘Who’s Who in Ag’ in Colorado
We’re incredibly proud to announce that our CEO, Rusty Walker, is among the honorees for the Who’s Who in Agriculture awards for 2022. The annual award from the Denver Business Journal and Colorado Farm Bureau recognizes an industry leader’s accomplishments in helping to put food on our plates and generate nearly $50 billion in collective economic activity each year.
Rusty is featured in the April 1 edition of the Denver Business Journal and was honored during a ceremony on March 31 at Kevin Taylor’s at the Opera House in Denver, alongside other deserving recipients.
Probably the coolest thing about this recognition is that two separate organizations decided to nominate Rusty unprompted. His influence and leadership are a big part of our success story, and we’re glad that people outside of the company see that.
Read more about Rusty Walker here
Proudest accomplishment of the past year?
Helping to feed people in areas of need, because no one should go hungry. I’m also proud of helping build a team at FarmBox that truly believes in our mission of empowering communities to grow their own food.
What impact has the pandemic had on your area of focus?
Sourcing of materials has become more challenging, but the supply chain disruption has thrust local farming into the spotlight in a good way. Hyperlocal farming provides a secure source of food near the consumer without concern for delays related to supply chain issues. The disruption has brought to everyone’s attention how important having decentralized food production is. This disruption provides a unique opportunity for us to focus on a product that can have a meaningful impact. Our farms have come about at an opportune time to bring attention to just how vulnerable we were as a society.
What would you say is the biggest challenge Colorado’s agricultural industry faces today?
Drought conditions would have to be up there. It’s become so much harder for farms to thrive because of weather and climate impacts. Water shortages are a real thing, and we have something that can be part of the solution. Colorado is in a precarious position for a number of reasons and our farms enable people to conserve this important resource. We can help farmers who are struggling with uncertainty and provide a reliable, secure source of nutritious food.
What could the state of Colorado do better to fix it?
Incentivize alternative methods of farming that decrease risk of crop loss, reduce water usage, and have less impact on the environment. We have been embraced by the farming community because we provide a lifeline that enables farmers and ranchers to grow food year-round, and especially during times in which weather negatively affects crop yields. What we’re up against is out of our control, but we provide the ability to focus on things that are in our control.
What’s one thing you wish Coloradans understood about your job that most don’t?
Even though we’re a for-profit company, we’re very much a mission-driven organization. That means people and their right to food security doesn’t get lost in the decision-making process. We’re very intentional about how we have grown, and how we operate, and that’s been key to our success. There are few industries that controlled-environment agriculture doesn’t fit into, and so it’s figuring out where we can have the most impact.
When I was asked to be CEO, it was a blessing. It was taking on the responsibility of carrying on that blessing and all of its challenges, and we have a purpose-driven mission that’s not taken lightly. Anytime you have an opportunity to carry out a purpose like this, you have to know that this is much bigger than myself or this company, because we have something that can have a huge effect on the world. The importance of that is not lost on me or the FarmBox team.
What trends are you watching in your field in 2022?
We try to take a broad look at trends related to how impactful our farms are in the communities that our farms serve. It’s measuring the impact of our farms in communities where they’re placed, and how that affects those communities, coordinating with local organizations, including 501c3s, in getting these farms where they need to go.
What advice do you have for young professionals in your field?
Continue exploring ways to do more with less by using science and tech to solve concrete problems facing the world. Continued improvement is part of our culture, and I find that’s the best way to go about your professional and personal life. I also think you should never go it alone. You should work on being a team player and surround yourself with people who want to achieve a goal together, and go at it in a selfless way.
What do you do in your free time?
I love to spend time with my family, read, exercise, golf and just enjoy life in Colorado.
Farming Solutions for a Sustainable (and Less Scary) Future
Farming Solutions are needed – It seems every day you come across a news story that paints a very bleak future for traditional farming and the consumers who benefit from it.
We’ll briefly explore the many challenges facing the agricultural industry, but we’ll also posit some potential ways for farming operations large and small to adapt to changing times and conditions.
Shifting climate patterns are making it vastly more difficult to predict whether a crop will make it to harvest. Heat waves, hail storms, cold snaps and floods have become more pervasive and intense in recent years. Even crops that may not be directly affected by catastrophes, like the severe drought currently gripping the western portion of the U.S., are being indirectly impacted by residual factors, like smoke from wildfires.
We’re also facing other crippling issues without a foreseeable fix. Supply chains that support agriculture have been stretched to their limit since the beginning of the pandemic for a variety of reasons, including transportation availability, labor shortages, and associated delays affecting raw material sourcing. And the skyrocketing cost of fertilizer is further complicating matters for traditional farming operations and having an outsized impact on already-thin profit margins.
But what if there was a way to circumvent these issues using innovations in agtech? It sounds impossible, and while it comes with its own set of challenges, indoor growing, especially in urban areas, could be a big part of the answer going forward.
Science and tech have come a long way in the last decade (hello, sensor technology!), allowing growers to do much more with much less in a smaller footprint. And hyperlocal farming means produce grows near the consumer, eliminating supply chain-related woes. Instead of spending the first half of its shelf life in transit, veggies get to the end user much quicker, resulting in less food waste. Local growing also reduces the need to burn fossil fuels to get food to its destination, and empowers communities to gain more control over their own food supply.
It’s hard to put a value on security and reliability, and we certainly won’t attempt to, but controlled-environment agriculture allows people to harvest large yields year-round without external variables getting in the way. There’s also no need for fertilizers or pesticides, which takes possible contamination of drinking water out of the equation.
The practice is gaining momentum worldwide and already having an impact on sourcing for grocery chains, hotels, hospitals, restaurants and food banks. Likewise, farmers are embracing the technology because it provides a security blanket in uncertain times.
Drought, flood impacts create uncertainty for food producers
Drought, flood impacts create uncertainty for food producers
An alarming pattern has emerged in the farming industry over the last two decades, and experts believe the impact on food production won’t relent anytime soon.
A recent analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that payouts to U.S. farmers for crops destroyed by droughts and flooding climbed by more than 340% between 1995 and 2020. During that time period, farmers received over $143.5 billion in federal crop insurance payments, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that analyzes research data and spotlights breakthrough findings to inform decisions that govern everyday life.
While the conditions threaten the current livelihoods of farmers across the country, there are also intangible, permanent effects that can’t be ignored, such as the exodus of families who have been farming for decades and, in some cases, centuries. They’re simply giving up due to variables that are beyond their control.
The EWG points out that while crop insurance provides a crucial safety net for farmers, the program is doing little to mitigate climate-related risks. Taxpayers pick up about 60% of premiums, which means farmers cover the other 40% to get a crop insurance policy. EWG says the “costs are expected to go up even more, as climate change causes even more unpredictable weather conditions,” according to an article on CommonDreams.org.
This inevitability has decision-makers at the federal and state level considering drastic alternative measures, especially ones that help farmers adapt to changing conditions, enabling them to produce crops regularly without external factors.
One of those solutions is farming in controlled environments that eliminate outside impacts and promise reliable yields. Shipping containers are being repurposed and outfitted with a network of sensors and high-tech systems that regulate temperature, humidity, nutrient concentrations, watering and lighting. They enable farmers to grow food year-round — regardless of weather or climate — and drastically reduce the amount of water needed to grow crops, because the water is recycled and filtered and not lost to evaporation or transpiration.
“We see ourselves not as a replacement for traditional farming, but rather a tool that allows farmers to have that steady source of income throughout the year, without the stress,” said Rusty Walker, CEO of a Colorado-based company called FarmBox Foods, which designs, manufactures and sells enclosed hydroponic farms.
The containerized farms are also a critical element for crop production on islands, which currently import the vast majority of their food. The automated farms essentially add acreage to an island for the purpose of food production, cutting out potential supply chain issues and shipping costs that inflate food prices.
As Congress develops a new farm bill in 2023, the EWG is calling on lawmakers to consider focusing on “how to effectively fund farm programs so that farmers can adapt to and fight the climate crisis.”
FarmBox Foods Unveils Plans for Hydroponic Fodder Farm
FarmBox Foods is developing a hydroponic fodder farm that will be sold beginning this year. It will produce roughly 1,000 pounds of fodder per day.
FarmBox Foods Unveils Plans for Hydroponic Fodder Farm
Tornado recovery driven by volunteers, sense of community
Scott and Melanie Walker have spent the last month helping neighbors recover from a deadly tornado that devastated Cambridge Shores, Kentucky, in December 2021.
Tornado recovery driven by volunteers, sense of community
Tornado Recovery was needed – and Scott Walker was less than a mile away from his new home in Cambridge Shores, a community near Mayfield, Kentucky, when the local police turned him away.
If the officers hadn’t been there to block traffic coming into town, Scott would have been directly in the path of the deadly twister that passed through the night of Dec. 10. In fact, he’d already dodged three tornadoes in southern Illinois on his way there.
Fate stepped in and saved him, and somehow, his house escaped with only minor damage, but many of his neighbors lost their homes. The devastation was almost incomprehensible. When emergency crews began clearing a path into affected areas, Scott was the 10th car in line, and was stunned by the scale of the damage.
Since then, Scott and his wife, Melanie, did what many others have done and joined an army of volunteers, which included those who’d lost everything, and pitched in where they could. When he returned to his hometown near Chicago, Scott rallied friends and family to donate goods. He brought down two full truckloads of supplies — toiletries, water, diapers, rakes, gloves, granola bars, flashlights, extension cords — and created a GoFundMe campaign for a new playground that literally hit its $4,000 goal as this video was being made. Henry Brothers Company, a general contractor in the Chicago area, donated an SUV full of supplies, and former students of the swim coach for the Lyons Township HS Aquatics program, and their parents, were instrumental in gathering relief supplies. Melanie has spent the last few weeks helping to distribute those supplies throughout the community.
Scott and Melanie, who purchased their home in Cambridge Shores in September, are just one example of the ongoing relief efforts in Kentucky and surrounding states, where 77 people were killed during the December rash of tornadoes. Even though they didn’t know their neighbors yet, Scott and Melanie quickly made friends with them, and they plan to be there for the long haul.
“We love this place even more than when we bought our house because of how people are there for one another,” Scott said.
FarmBox Foods, a Colorado company for which his brothers serve as CEO and Chief Strategy Officer, donated a total of $750 toward the playground, and it’s hopeful that it can work with local, state and federal officials in the future on a solution for food security in disaster areas, which are often cut off from the food supply chain in the wake of a storm. FarmBox Foods builds automated farms inside shipping containers, and those container farms can provide a hyperlocal source of nutritious food. These mobile units and other innovations can help a community get back on its feet a little bit quicker, with healthy food to help power the long recovery ahead.
“It’s going to be a long process for our community. It’s been totally annihilated. Pictures can’t even tell the story,” he said. “We’re going to be here every step of the way.”
Container Farms on School Campuses – Community Supported Agriculture
With a foundation in technology and science, there’s greater interest in container farming among students of all ages. Controlled-climate farming enables people to grow food almost anywhere in the world, helping to eliminate food deserts.
Container Farms on School Campuses – School districts and teachers are always looking for new and innovative tools to capture their students’ attention and promote enthusiasm for learning.
Teaching students how their education is interwoven into later professional success just might bring purpose to those who currently find none in a traditional classroom. When you place students in a setting with engaging hands-on projects that give them practical experience, the potential for future success is limitless.
An operating container farm has a unique ability to touch multiple subjects and areas of interest for young students, especially those who want to find ways to better our world through science and tech. A container farm shows the next generations how to do more with fewer resources by engineering concrete solutions that promote sustainability. These applications have positive real-world implications, including improving our ability to feed people in food deserts and reducing the use of fossil fuels for shipping food over long distances.
Emerging technologies, including those that rely on sensors, have opened up new avenues and ideas and solutions for longstanding problems. This is an exciting prospect for a generation that increasingly is looking to eschew the typical 9-to-5 office grind and, for lack of a better term, get their hands dirty.
From using cultivation methods that require less energy and water, to developing a solid business plan, to maintaining the mechanisms that enable containerized farms to thrive, to demonstrating and quantifying the sustainability of such operations, there are many skill sets needed to make the endeavor a success.
Adding a container farm to a school campus offers high-level learning opportunities in perpetuity and equips students with expertise and experience that few other young professionals or college applicants can claim. It’s a tech-driven differentiator for schools and districts that pride themselves on thinking outside the educational box, and it could produce a wave of future entrepreneurs.
Today, container farming is a glimpse into the future. Soon, it will be the new normal, and it’s time that students of all ages get introduced to concepts that can help achieve progress that will benefit humankind.
What are the benefits to schools?
- Equipping future generations with the ability to use science and technology to grow food for underserved populations.
- Feeding students fresh, nutrient-dense foods.
- Reducing costs associated with purchasing transported foods while enabling schools to cheaply grow their own.
- Providing foods for students in need to take home with them so they will have quality food they grew themselves.
- Create revenue streams for the school through school farmers markets all year long.
View The FarmBox Gourmet Mushroom Container Farm
Suttons Vertical Gardens – No shipping required: Container farm provides fresh greens directly to community
Tracking the rise of community-supported agriculture, or CSAs.
From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, fresh vegetables were hard to come by in rural areas outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The cost of the produce that was available began to increase, and the quality was decreasing.
It was then that Kris and Brenda Sutton circled back around to an idea that Kris had researched a few years earlier: vertical farming.
They learned that growing produce in the community where it’s consumed eliminates supply chain issues from the equation and can give customers peace of mind knowing where their food is coming from. It also means consumers get fresh, nutrient dense produce compared to those being shipped in, losing nutritional value as they are transported. Additionally they learned that the vertical farms — housed inside insulated, controlled-climate shipping containers — can operate year-round, regardless of the season, allowing for quality and consistency for the food.
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The idea was tossed around for a short time between the husband and wife, but after Kris was briefly put off his work as an airplane mechanic following a back injury, he laid on the couch and daydreamed more and more about running his own vertical hydroponic farm. He saw this career as a less physically demanding and more rewarding one. His “happy place” during recovery was thinking about “getting back to gardening and planting seedlings in the Spring.”
Kris and Brenda decided to contact and visit a nearby vertical farm and quickly embraced the concept and all it could offer.
“She was more excited than I was at that point,” Kris says, then adds, “well, close. On the same level.”
The owner of the container farm they visited, however, pointed out some of its inefficiencies, and recommended buying a farm from their competitor, FarmBox Foods, which offers a system that requires less labor, is more efficient and can produce larger yields.
Months later, the daydream became a reality when a FarmBox Foods container farm was placed in their backyard. Within weeks, the first crop was on its way and Sutton’s Vertical Gardens was officially in business.
Together Kris and Brenda developed a start up plan that includes selling a variety of lettuces to local grocers and restaurants between Halifax and Enfield, Nova Scotia. Sutton’s Vertical Gardens also has plans to further serve their community in the future by hopefully offering the container farm as a venue for school field trips, volunteer experience and educational purposes.
”Yes, we want to make money and have a livelihood but we also want to try and educate and inspire others to be farmers, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Who better to start sharing these ideas with but our future generations?!” Brenda said.
Kris, the business’ main farmer, who comes from a family of green thumbs and has an existing 14-by-24-foot greenhouse filled with bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes, gets up at 5:30 a.m. every morning and embarks on the shortest commute he’s ever had. He walks to the FarmBox Foods container farm in his backyard in Enfield, NS, a mere 30 feet away from the fenced-in play area for the Sutton’s adorable odd couple Boston Terrier and Great Dane, and walks into his new office.
The fresh scent and the sight of the ever growing and changing plants are a daily reminder that the Suttons are right where they should be, creating something they’re proud to soon be sharing with their local communities.
“They always say ‘try to find a job where you do what you love and it will never feel like work,’” Kris says. “I feel very lucky to be able to say I’m doing just that.”
Learn more by following Sutton’s Vertical Gardens on Instagram and Facebook.
View The FarmBox Gourmet Mushroom Container Farm