The summer started so we created a “long” version of the newsletter. Long articles, podcasts, less short term news, close and more distant related to vertical farming and sometimes with some thoughts from us. Hope you enjoy it.
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The subscriber base of this newsletter is steadily growing into the hundreds already. We are almost reaching 400 people or companies already.
Hope you enjoy it. You can find earlier newsletters here, you can follow us on Twitter and please ….. :
Michael Terrell, Director of Energy at Google [podcast & transcript by MCJ]
Michael is the Director of Energy at Google, where he leads global strategy and 24/7 carbon-free energy initiatives for Google's data centers and global energy portfolio. We dive into Google's clean energy commitments, how the company has evolved since the early 00s, and where the future lies for the tech giant.
Energy consumption is one of the bigger topics within Vertical Farming. There are a lot of things to learn from world leader Google.
This company is building a carbon calculator for every product in the world (by FastCompany)
“Our vision here is that CO2 will be super, super important for every retailer … and brands and marketplaces will need a technological player to display the carbon footprints massively on a large number of products,” says cofounder and CEO Marc Laurent. “They won’t be able to do it by themselves, because you want an impartial judge and trusted third party to conduct the analysis.”
Can Vertical Farming be a solution in this big carbon topic? We think it can.
The end of farming? (by The Guardian)
For decades, the way we farm has been degrading land and destroying wildlife. Now there’s a revolution coming – but is it going to create more problems than it solves?
Coronavirus crisis fuels interest in vertical farming (by FT)
The coronavirus pandemic has been a major worry for many British farmers, threatening access to agricultural labour and complicating international supply chains. But for proponents of indoor farming, the crisis has offered an opportunity.
Our data shows that the interest is rising rapidly, investments are increasing and consumers are paying more attention to their food. Do you see this?
Vertical farming is good for business & the planet (by Accenture)
VIF is an instant driver of more sustainable food production. VIF systems leverage data to produce food three times faster than traditional farming methods while using up to 95 percent less water.7 A vertically farmed acre can produce the equivalent of four to six soil-based acres, depending on the crop, alleviating pressure on arable land.8 In addition, VIF production sites can be set up close to urban populations, reducing transport emissions and minimizing supply chain risks. Together, these savings could drive environmental stewardship and help advance several of the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Wouldn’t be great to have 1 single source of truth on all statistics?
GLAM: Keeping Track of Food Production From Space (by SciTechDaily)
While USDA has monitored crops around the world for almost a century, the discovery that satellites can “see” greening of vegetation has revolutionized agricultural monitoring for food security. The development of the GLAM system in the 1980s, a collaboration with USDA and the International Production Assessment Division, has helped governments to assess whether or not there will be enough basic food crops to feed their populations, as well as provide international food aid organizations with a tool to predict where food shortages might occur.
Is this the best tool to define the best allocation for new vertical farms?
Food waste: How can it be reduced in the EU and globally? (by The Brussels Times)
The Driven to Waste report, released last week by WWF-UK and British retailer Tesco, finds that at the farming stage alone, 1.2 billion tonnes – or 15.3% – of food produced around the world is lost during harvest or slaughter operations.
Until now, farms have largely remained a neglected hotspot of food waste. This is in part due to difficulty in measuring food waste at the farm stage, particularly that which remains unharvested for a variety of reasons. In the report, the authors calculated global farm-stage waste from more than 2,000 farm-stage food loss and waste data points for different commodities and regions using online databases and literature reviews.
DeepMind’s AI predicts structures for a vast trove of proteins (by Nature)
AlphaFold neural network produced a ‘totally transformative’ database of more than 350,000 structures from Homo sapiens and 20 model organisms.
Now, a transformative artificial intelligence (AI) tool called AlphaFold, which has been developed by Google’s sister company DeepMind in London, has predicted the structure of nearly the entire human proteome (the full complement of proteins expressed by an organism). In addition, the tool has predicted almost complete proteomes for various other organisms, ranging from mice and maize (corn) to the malaria parasite (see ‘Folding options’).
This could have a very high impact on food production and to pinpoint where to increase global health impact 1st.
True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System (by The Rockefeller Foundation)
This report outlines the true cost of food, which includes the impacts on our health, the environment, biodiversity, livelihoods, and much more. With this new analysis, governments, advocates, corporations, and individuals are better equipped to catalyze the change needed to develop a truly nourishing, equitable, and sustainable food system in the United States.
See you next time & enjoy your summer.
The Real Plant team
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