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Sky high building costs and supply shortages? Try hemp

Houses made from hemp could be the next sustainable solution to Australia’s building supplies crisis. Hemp concrete, or ‘hempcrete,’ is emerging as a greener alternative to traditional bricks and concrete. From domestic housing to city skyscrapers, plant-based materials such as hempcrete cut reliance on…

Terra Vita Farm

US: All about Wilmington-grown microgreens

Although microgreens are becoming more popular among consumers and restaurants, growers in the Wilmington area still say that education is an important part of what they do.  “I could talk to people all day about what I do,” said Randall Rhyne of CraftGrown Farm (and CraftGrown Market) on Castle Street in…

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US (IN): Windrose Urban Farm no longer offering mushrooms

Windrose Urban Farm, a supplier of mushrooms for local restaurants, announced they are no longer supplying the ingredient. The change comes as the farm said it wants to focus on new products and continue its mission of being a source of employment for those with barriers and disabilities. On New Year's…

Saffron: a proper crop for enhancing profits?

“This online platform is a fundamental pillar in our mission to empower farmers to sustainably produce saffron for a growing world population in an ever-changing climate,” says Khalil Mirza, CEO and co-founder of Saffrosystems LLC. As Khalil explains, Saffrosystems operates a donation-based online…

Vertically farmed basil: a powerful ingredient for men’s cosmetics

“As the skin is a very porous organ, it is important to feed it a healthy diet and use natural products. With that in mind, I created a cosmetics brand using basil grown in vertical farms,” says James Chase, founder and CEO of BAZ&CO. The UK-based vertical farming company aims to provide naturally…

France: Have a look at this indoor shrimp farm

Elgin Business Resource partners with Planet Shrimp, Aylmer, ON. Planet Shrimp is a bio-secure, indoor shrimp farm with truly responsible farm-to-fork practices. No impact on eco-systems, free of harmful chemicals, unhealthy additives, and toxic elements. Certified by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency,…

Molecular farming: targeting the science behind botanical active ingredients

“We want our technology to control what the plant is producing, not simply the yield. We want researchers and producers to be able to act on any metabolic process occurring in the plants,” says Paul-Hector Oliver, founder, and chief executive officer at Orius. Orius is a French agtech company that offers…

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UK: Cambridge Judge Business School supportd new ventures to improve sustainability in agriculture

The issue of how to feed a growing population, and do it sustainably, is a crucial issue for the 21st century and has been brought more sharply into focus by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a key agricultural producer.  The issue was high on the agenda at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27)…

Scaling saffron production whilst attracting new industries to beauty

"Pushing the capabilities of vertical farming means growing foods that aren’t so easy to grow. Saffron for example is a corm. Unlike plants that grow from seeds, corms have longer and more complex life cycles. Sativus Tech’s mission wasn’t just to make all foods accessible for consumption, but also for…

New perspectives on the protein transition: a role for the public sector

To help the public sector resolve barriers in the protein transition, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) launches the campaign ‘Protein Transition: from pain points to perspectives’. In 4 sessions (from November 2022 – February 2023) a multidisciplinary team of WUR experts zooms in on the 4 biggest…

Swiss: From supplying retail to the year-round cultivation of natural plant extracts

“It is very difficult to have a stable product quality when transporting fresh herbs. We solved that problem that processing our fresh herbs into essences, which can be stored and handled as a processed product,” says Christian Gerig, founder of Pinkfarm. Christian Gerig Pinkfarm is an indoor farm in St.…

James Franco

US (NY): "Mushrooms are having a moment'

The New York Times recently named them the “Ingredient of the Year.” And in the Capital Region, Troy’s Collar City Mushrooms is farming fresh, gourmet fungi, running as fast as they can to meet constantly increasing demand. Founder Avery Semple opened the vertical mushroom farm in February 2021 in the…

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Is it time to start eating algae?

“It tastes like bacon. It’s crispy, and then you get this big flavor bomb,” says Beth Zotter, the CEO of Umaro foods. The San Francisco-based start-up is making bacon from an unlikely source—seaweed.  Zotter is one of many entrepreneurs tapping into the potential of algae, a category that encompasses thousands…

Investment round to bring cost-effective plant-protein ingredients to market

NuCicer announced the closure of an additional seed investment round. The funding, led by Leaps by Bayer, alongside Lever VC, Blue Horizon, and Trellis Road, follows an earlier investment round led by Lever VC in October 2021. It will allow NuCicer to scale production of its first-generation chickpea…

Tapping into insect farming to clear Zimbabwe's urban waste

On a sunny and windy morning, Brighton Zambezi scooped up a kilogram of black soldier fly larvae into a box. In a few days, he would dispatch them to a farmer in Botswana. The agricultural entrepreneur breeds the insect larvae, wormlike creatures that eventually become adult insects, at the back of his…

Indoor agriculture and cosmetics

Indoor Ag is penetrating new sectors to make life more sustainable, accessible, and clean. One of the ones to watch, proving to be a future hot spot for Indoor Ag, is the cosmetics and beauty industry. According to Statista, revenue in the Beauty & Personal Care market amounts to US$534.00bn in 2022, and the market is expected…