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As our food system buckles under the weight of climate change and demand for locally grown produce increases, a new hero has emerged to save our planet (and our plates). Enter indoor farming, more scientifically known as Controlled Environment Agriculture or CEA.
By controlling temperature, light, and CO2, indoor farmers can create optimal growing conditions anytime, anywhere. The result? Farms in reclaimed urban spaces (think warehouses and rooftops) that produce more crops and use significantly less water than traditional agriculture.
If this all sounds wildly ambitious and futuristic, itās because it is. For nearly a decade, a crop of startups have been perfecting the algorithms and operations required to build these indoor farms, and their efforts have begun to bear fruit. In 2020 alone, VCs ponied up nearly $1B to help these companies bring their hydroponic harvest to a supermarket near you.
As pumped as I am about the transformative potential of CEA, itās admittedly a bit out of my wheelhouse. So much so, in fact, that I decided to call in some help from the experts on this one. All of the episodes youāll hear in this pack were handpicked by the incomparable Erin Livesey-Becks (Product Manager at Gotham Greens) and Leland Chamlin (Chief of Staff at Bowery Farming). Read on for more on their picks, or go ahead and get listening!
Erinās picks
Title: The Digital Distributed Agriculture of the Future with Sonia Lo
Pod: The Modern Acre
Description: I kicked off my picks with this one as it covers everything from farm function, distribution, financing, building culture in COVID, and personally entering the space. Iāll also admit to my own personal bias here with an interest in the lone female CEO among the major CEA (controlled environment agriculture) players. Given her extensive background in finance, Iāve found this podcast to be one of the most helpful in thinking through the different paths available to young CEA farms today. A key piece, for me, is her coverage of the VC influx into the space - largely for the tech - when this is a very fixed asset world. Sheās also able to describe the space from her experience with both Crop One and now Sensei Ag, a company linked to the larger Larry Ellison effort on human wellness.
Title: Viraj Puri, Co-Founder and CEO of Gotham Greens
Pod: Business Class: Office Hours
Description: Like Leland, Iām pulling in another bias here with Gothamās CEO, Viraj Puri. Here you get some unique perspective by hearing about the development of one of the older players in the space, launching in 2009 when people assumed they were creating a community garden. Viraj walks through the various inflection points in the company over the last 12 years with greenhouse expansion into new cities, the needs to hire while staying lean, and pushing through Hurricane Sandy and a global pandemic. I particularly love this one for how it walks through the flexibility of the often less-discussed elements of the industry: connection with local food security initiatives, provision of a reliable supply chain among disruption, hiring employees with both professional and personal aspirations, and contribution to a global movement.
Title: City Food: The Vertical Farms Growing Produce Next Door
Pod: The Tomorrow Farm
Description: This one joins the playlist for its variety in guests, feeling a bit like a podcast pack all by itself. It kicks off with Christine Escobar, VP at SpaceLab Technologies, who was responsible for finding a way to provide NASA astronauts with fresh, nutritious food in a very confined space. Enter LilyPond, SpaceLabās microgravity growth chamber and selected crop duckweed. Ā Gerri Goh chimes in next, representing Temasek as the Director of Enterprise Development in Singapore currently focusing on vertical farms. As such, she provides a great global perspective on how vertical farms can be an integral part of the food system in rapidly urbanizing areas where competition for land is high. The next viewpoint comes from plant breeding with John Purcell of Unfold. In its short history, CEA has focused mostly on quick-growing leafy greens. John leads the conversation around what is next - and how plant biologists can focus on catching and supporting trends for indoor growers in fruits and beyond. Ā The final stop is with PJ Amini, the Director of Venture Investments for Leaps by Bayer. He closes things out with a detailed description of trends that have him excited about the space. Ā
Title: All About Indoor Agriculture - A Growing Business
Pod: The Business of Agriculture Podcast with Damian Mason
Description: This was my pick for a good holistic view of the industryās value proposition, farming models, and macro trends in the space. But for added fun, hearing about it from New Zealand, with Autogrow CEO Darynn Keiller. This is a fun one for listeners out there asking themselves: what would I need to think about if I wanted to start something up myself? He walks through Ā building the basics of the business plan with thoughts on what to sell to who, how to grow, and who to hire. At the very least, Damian and Darynn have a fun rapport that will make this an easy listen. Do they somehow end up talking about chocolate-dipped bananas in Cleveland in the middle of February? Maybe.
Lelandās picks
Title: How Skepticism Can Fuel You with Irving Fain at Bowery Farming
Pod: Inc. Founders Project with Alexa Von Tobel
Description: Iām obviously biased here but I think this particular episode is the ideal intro to the space. Irving very clearly defines the macro tailwinds behind the indoor farming industry and really captures the entire scope of the business problem. Itās very easy in this space to get mired in the different methods of farming out there and become lost in the technology. Instead, this podcast really focuses on the problem that indoor farming is trying to solve and why itās one that needs to be solved right now. One particularly important point to take away from this episode is that indoor farming is not simply rethinking how farming works, itās actually leveraging technology to simplify the entire fresh food supply chain. Most of the produce we eat changes hands 7-8 times before it gets to your door, and is almost always mixed with produce from a variety of other farms. Indoor farming simplifies this by putting every part of the supply chain under one roof (aside from the final sale). This creates a fresher product, but also a safer and completely traceable product.
Title: Hiroki Koga - Vertical Farming at Commercial Scale
Pod: Vertical Farming Podcast
Description: This recommendation is as much about the podcast as it is this particular episode. Indoor farming is really difficult to go deep on because a lot of the information out there looks the same. Despite the venture dollars it has attracted, the industry is still nascent. Vertical Farming Podcast is one of the few podcasts that truly captures a breadth of the space. If you really want to get a quick survey of the major vertical farming players and how they look at the industry broadly, I would honestly just listen to every single episode from this podcast. I specifically chose the interview with Hiroki Koga (CEO of Oishii) here because his company is one of the few vertical farms that focused first and exclusively on fruiting crops. He walks through why he decided to do strawberries rather than leafy greens, and why he chose to play at the super premium end of the market. Oishii is making a contrarian bet in an already contrarian industry, and their approach is very different from the existing companies in the space.
Title: Mike Zelkind, co-founder, and CEO of 80 Acres Farms
Pod: Bigger Than US
Description: This particular episode is the one you should listen to in order to get a bit more into the weeds on the benefits of a vertical farming system vs other systems. In fairness, it's difficult to understand how a vertical farm really works from the outside, and if you really want to understand it at a granular level, I recommend you read Plant Factory. But as far as podcasts go, Mike Zelkind does a great job describing how a vertical farm operates and why he chose to ultimately scale a vertical farming system rather than the others he was experimenting with in the early days of founding 80 Acres. Youāll find most of the discussion around the 80 Acres system in the first half of the episode, as the second half migrates more toward discussion around the shortcomings of our current food supply chain.