city farm systems growing closer to the consumer jonathan lodge 21 st october 2015 ...
TRANSCRIPT
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Before I start...
Deliver Horizon 2020 funding
‘Agriculture is one of four “priority domains” for robotics’
Please get your Robotics & Agriculture people to talk to each other!
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We need to feed more people
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We hear of Urban Farming but what is it?
growing a few herbs at home?
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bringing the market garden to town?
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or an underground tunnel?
(courtesy of Growing Underground, Clapham, London)
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or cheap to erect buildings .... but in European cities saving a few motorway miles will never cover
the overheads of a building that can cost 10-20,000 times the same area of agricultural land
Commercial growing in a warehouse?
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Great in very cheap buildings in US ghost towns
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Don’t forget the cost of fitting it out – with little more than fancy shelves that cost as much to install as to build & equip a rural greenhouse.
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So imagine the cost of this:
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All that technology..... but still relying on manual labour!
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not to mention paying for and to heat all those unnecessary walkways
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Outside some think this is worth doing:
….they don’t generate as much energy as needed by lorries delivering to the store and nothing to improve local air
quality or reduce congestion.City Farm Systems
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Growing ‘Protected Edibles’ in the UK is overseen by
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A statutory levy body – taking 0.5% of wholesale turnover
'In the future linking glasshouse production with low grade heat sources will mean efficient production systems
can be achieved and waste heat utilised, actually providing a solution to achieve
reductions of GHG …’
2015
In the longer term, novel growing systems that can be predominantly automated should be developed and evaluated for these crops…'
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Look again:
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Look again:
All this equipment is dumping unwanted heat and CO2 from the store belowwhile their suppliers pay to produce both in their rural greenhouses andstill have to pay for huge amounts of transport only packaging...
the store pays to dump.
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That’s the need… so how do we do it?
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No retailer will allow routine access to a low pitched retail roof.
We HAVE to automate the process…… which gives many opportunities:
Using basic automation we move growing crops around the VOLUME rather than just an area. Not vertical farming but 3D farming.
Instead of huge quantities of pipework we bring the crops to nutrient enriched rainwater.
Our system of modules either side of a robotic transfer corridor allows simple installation and easy scalability. This is where our protected IP comes in.
All we need is the space of a lift shaft for our systems to access a whole roof.
We can concentrate our cameras and sensors along this corridor meaning fewer expensive components.
Track crop location with RFID and log progress in a database.
As long as there is room for the system to go
there and back we can fill the whole volume
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Our demo unit includes rainwater harvesting.
With a Solar PV panel it will be fully
autonomous.
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‘
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Dipping trays of crops into water encourages good root growth, ensures all crops are treated equally
and prevents soil compaction.
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That’s the hardware sorted. Now we need to optimise it…
• What we achieve is a new business model… why flog your guts out and then hope to sell expensively grown produce?
• Why grow, pack and deliver what know will end up wasted?
• Our systems buffer supplies:bad weather? – leave produce on the roof
good weather? – tomorrow’s crop is minutes away• To achieve this we modify historic sales with trends and
weather data to create a ‘grow to order’ process.• Using IoT and connectivity we can manage centrally
delivering sowing & cropping plans by web.
Based on Tridium’s Niagara platform our management
software allows HQ to select an installation to see more...
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… and all staff can drill down to the
detail
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Highlighting individual modules drills down to crop
data
modules shaded red indicate an alarm
status such as lower than expected CO2
Business Case – Background
Example Crop Sales Price / Annual CFS Production per m2 & GP :
Viable (UK) Roofs : • 2160 x supermarket roofs over 5000m2 = 10,800,000 m2
• + Large scale food preparation units & distribution centres• + Education sector : Universities, Schools and Colleges (both catering and
curriculum content )• + Hospitals & Nursing Homes • …..~ 250,000 hectares south facing commercial rooftops (most need food inside)
Crop Family Variety Days / Cycle
Pot size # / tray Retail ££
Supply ££
Cost ££ GP% Tray value
annual value / M2
40 10 12 1.2 0.54 0.15 72% £6.48 £710
Micro Herbs 12 10 12 2 0.9 0.2 78% £10.80 £3,942
Cress 7 7 18 0.29 0.1305 6% 0.54 £2.35 £1,470
Baby leaf salad mix 25 15 6 1.99 0.8955 20% 0.78 £5.37 £941
Rocket 40 15 6 1.75 0.7875 18% 0.77 £4.73 £517Spring onions 40 7.5 18 0.49 0.2205 13% 0.41 £3.97 £435
potted daffodils 40 12 8 3 1.35 20% 0.85 £10.80 £1,183bedding plants 40 6 4 3 1.35 20% 0.85 £5.40 £591
Poinsettia 60 12 8 3 1.35 20% 0.85 £10.80 £788potted Hyacinths 40 12 8 3 1.35 20% 0.85 £10.80 £1,183
General - e.g Basil, Parsley, Thyme,
Coriander, RosemaryHerbs
Salad Crops
Bedding plants
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Working together…..We can brand the presentation in the retail space.
Extending the use of RFID we can deliver produce marketing info to consumers……or even create apps for smartphones & tablets …
giving the ultimate transparent supply chain
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Recognition:
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We met most internationally
recognised experts last year
A winning concept in
the
A finalist in these international awards
voted for by peers
We find out who wins these awards in
November
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so we can
deliver salads with Pi
For the smaller customer… and the educational market
We offer control systems running on a
Raspberry Pi
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info jglSales
@CityFarmSystems
www.city-farm-systems.com
Creating supply chains without transport or energy bills
Thank you
city-farm-systems.com@