Urban farms thrive under COVID-19
From community vegie gardens to vast vertical farms, city-based cropping ventures are proliferating as the coronavirus pandemic up-ends food supply chains and heightens food-security fears.
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Protected cropping and food-supply-chain resilience
Australia-based crop scientist Oula Ghannoum discusses how tech-enabled protected cropping can boost food-supply-chain resilience – right now, and in a post-pandemic world.
AI teams outperform traditional growers in WUR’s second Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge
Wageningen University & Research’s successful second Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge yielded powerful insights and ‘globally applicable’ algorithms, with AI teams outperforming human growers.
Australian vegetable grower to diversify into glasshouse cucumbers
Glasshouse producer-marketer Flavorite is emulating the European horticulture sector, growing cucumbers in high-tech glasshouses in a bid to bring year-round consistency to Australia’s cucumber supply chain.
New high-tech ‘quarantine’ greenhouse to run on broad-spectrum LEDs
Wageningen, the Netherlands’ premier protected-cropping research institute, has chosen a broad-spectrum LED solution from Fluence for its Serre Red greenhouse, which will conduct critical research into the world’s most costly crop diseases.
High-value vanilla crop grown in geodome from Sydneysider’s smartphone
Sydney-based inventor David Soo has grown vanilla worth $600,000 in a custom-made high-tech geodome in which everything can be controlled remotely via smartphone.
Can urban-fringe indoor farms help in our recovery post-pandemic?
The supply-chain disruption precipitated by the pandemic shutdown may provide the motivation needed to reinvigorate urban agriculture, contends protected cropping expert Oula Ghannoum.
‘Hands-free’ growers set to profit from food safety fears in COVID-19 pandemic
Fresh Local Produce of Ohio is reaping the benefits of its automated production system, with huge demand for its pre-packed salads in the COVID-19 shutdown.
Pathogen-detecting platform for indoor and outdoor cropping wins US$250,000 prize
Scanit Technologies has netted US$250,000 in prize money with its novel in-field platform that detects airborne plant pathogens and alerts growers, enabling them to take action to prevent potentially devastating crop infections.
Food Agility Summit 2020 wrap-up
At the Food Agility CRC’s inaugural Summit, 200+ attendees from across the agri-food sector explored the future of the sector in Australia: its challenges, opportunities and constraints. Watch the highlights video here.