SEVEN STEPS TO HEAVEN: HIGHTECH URBAN FARMS PRODUCE LOCAL FRESH VEGETABLES
Posted by Olga Koltsova | Mar 8, 2019
The modern farm ©Gertjan Meeuws
De boerderij van de toekomst bevindt zich niet meer op het platteland, maar midden in de stad. 'Urban farming', of verticale landbouw is een vorm van landbouw waarbij op verschillende lagen, die in een binnenruimte worden geïnstalleerd, voedsel wordt geproduceerd – in een pakhuis, een wolkenkrabber of zelfs een grote container. Seven Steps To Heaven uit Eindhoven, opgericht door Gertjan en Lianne Meeuws, verbouwt verse producten in een hightech verticale boerderij met behulp van LED-lampen in plaats van daglicht, in combinatie met temperatuur- en verdampingsregeling. De directeur van het bedrijf, Gertjan Meeuws, zegt dat het grootste verschil tussen traditionele en verticale landbouw is dat een binnenboerderij in de buurt van de consumenten kan zijn – zelfs in het centrum van een grote stad. "In plaats van een lange toeleveringsketen, waar de bron van je verse groente de hele wereld kan zijn, komen alle nodige groenten van één lokale boerderij. Verticale landbouw is de nieuwe toeleveringsketen," zegt Meeuws.
"ORGANIC FARMING 2.0"
"Vertical farming was not invented by farmers," says the director of Seven Steps To Heaven. "Usually, traditional farmers work far away from the consumer and they must mainly focus on the harvest to make a living. Breeding companies develop new varieties of vegetables focusing on resistance and high yield but not on taste and nutrition. In vertical farming, the focus is also on the harvest and making a living, just like in traditional farming, but we also aim to produce safe, tasty, and nutritious products - as close to the market as possible."
Meeuws believes that traditional agriculture and indoor farming can work together - it's not a matter of one or the other: "For example, our company can grow young plants that can be planted in a greenhouse or in an open field, and they are more vigorous than plants grown in the traditional way. We can produce young tomato plants that have extra energy, so when they leave our nursery, they can still benefit from that energy during the first few weeks in the greenhouse. This even allows growers to use little to no pesticides because these plants are so strong. There are many ways in which our technology and expertise can support traditional agriculture and breeding."
QUALITY, TASTE AND NUTRITIONAL VALUES
In all plants, photosynthesis takes place - they extract carbon from the air and produce oxygen and glucose. Meeuws explains that there are three levels of plant metabolism. At the first level, plants produce just enough sugars to stay alive, at the second level, they produce enough glucose to sustain themselves and start growing, at the third level, plants produce more sugars than they need for their growth and then start producing secondary metabolites - better known as vitamins and antioxidants, which are extremely important for our health and well-being. Secondary metabolites are just as important for the plants' life: they use those substances for protection against pests or to attract insects involved in pollination. Meeuws says: "When plants reach the third level of metabolism, they emit a kind of signal: "Don't eat me, environment!"
Ensuring that plants reach the highest level of their metabolism to become filled with vitamins is easier when the plants are grown in a controlled environment of an indoor farm rather than in the open field. In addition, a vertical farmer does not need to harvest the products when they are not yet ripe due to transportation reasons because in the concept of vertical farming, the products are consumed locally. "The vast majority of fresh products we eat nowadays are harvested way too early - the plants do not reach their full potential, making them less tasty and nutritious than they could have been," says the co-founder of Seven Steps To Heaven.
"A modern supermarket in Abu Dhabi, Algeria, Rwanda or Angola looks almost the same as a Jumbo or Albert Heijn. But when you go to the fresh produce section, you will find out that the vegetables are two to three times more expensive than in the Netherlands."
WHY VERTICAL FARMING
Vertical farming can be a promising solution for parts of the world where vegetable production is limited, or where fresh produce is not entirely safe to eat. Safety issues arise in areas where farmers have to use a lot of chemicals to save the harvest - and there are many such places in this world, says Gertjan Meeuws.
Indoor farms can bring significant benefits to regions where growers and consumers are far apart. One of the areas where vertical farming can show its true potential is in Africa. Meeuws describes African cities as urban areas of great size - much larger than cities in Europe but with little available farmland in and around the city. Often, transportation from the farms to the cities can take two to four days due to poor roads. Additionally, in Africa, there is little water available for crops during the dry season.
Meeuws says: "A modern supermarket in Abu Dhabi, Algeria, Rwanda or Angola looks almost the same as a Jumbo or Albert Heijn. But when you go to the fresh produce section, you will find out that the vegetables are two to three times more expensive than in the Netherlands. And the quality varies: vegetables are not always good and fresh. That is why Africa has great potential for vertical farming - and actually, the whole world could have lower prices and better quality of fresh products."
How affordable is an indoor farm? To build a vertical farm, you need an investor and a farm operator, who do not have to be from the same company. "In traditional agriculture, it is often the case that the farmer is both the owner of the farm and also works on the farm. We believe that it is advantageous to separate these two functions between two different parties. We see the future of vertical farming in a model that consists of real estate companies and the operating companies that lease the farms from the real estate companies. This method can help us accelerate the process of building vertical farms," says Meeuws.
"If we want to waste less, we need to be able to predict what consumers want - not today, but in 5-6 weeks."
VERTICAL FARMING FOR THE FUTURE
"Als we in de komende drie decennia 10 miljard mensen op rationele wijze van voedsel willen voorzien, moeten we onderscheid maken tussen voedsel dat slechts een brandstof is voor het lichaam (zoals maïs, tarwe, sojabonen) en het voedsel dat mensen nodig hebben om hun lichamen te herstellen – vitamines, antioxidanten etc. Als we die twee soorten voedsel op een slimma manier combineren, kunnen we mensen over de hele wereld van voedsel voorzien wat misschien niet goedkoop is, maar wel betaalbaar," zegt Meeuws. "Gevarieerde voeding is belangrijk omdat als kinderen in de eerste 4-5 jaar van hun leven het voedsel binnenkrijgen wat zij echt nodig hebben, ontwikkelt hun brein beter, en zijn de levenslange kosten van de gezondheidszorg lager." De directeur van Seven Steps To Heaven is van mening dat het redelijker is om in de toekomst wat meer te besteden aan veilig voedsel van goede kwaliteit dan om veel meer te besteden aan medicijnen en ziekenhuisbehandelingen. "Wat we nodig hebben is een bredere benadering naar de landbouw – het kan niet worden behandeld zonder dat er een verband bestaat met andere disciplines. Gezondheidszorg zou één van die disciplines moeten zijn zodat voedsel het medicijn wordt in plaats van farmaceutische producten." Een multidisciplinaire aanpak van de verticale landbouw is wat het bedrijf al gebruikt in zijn werk.
In the future, the development of indoor farming could change the work of meal kit delivery services like HelloFresh. "Now you sign up, order a package, and it contains all the products you need to prepare a meal for a family. Nowadays, these companies put together a combination of products whose origins they know. The next step is not to trace the origin, but to produce the products themselves," says Meeuws.
"The entire landscape of today's retail is based on overproduction. That's why tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables can be delivered to our homes at any time. If no one buys these products, 40 percent of everything we grow is thrown away. That is one of the reasons why food is so expensive. With the development of indoor farming, a consumer can become a member of a family farm that produces fresh products for a certain number of local families - in these circumstances, the growers know what and how much they need to produce, so they can keep production in balance," says Meeuws. "If we want to waste less, we need to be able to predict what consumers will demand - not today, but in 5-6 weeks. As long as we accept last-minute orders and deliver fresh products a day later, we can continue to overproduce - and that is not a smart way to feed the rapidly growing population of our food world."
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