In this section, we only discuss future trends; if we are going to establish a position in a company that will be discussed under the pending plays section or in the AI trend trader service.
There are several small players in this sector, one of the top players is Plenty Unlimited. Vertical farming will eventually help put the nail on the coffin for some of the big corporate names that thrived at the expense of the small farmer. Now some of those small farms will bury them in the years to come with the help of AI. The law of balancing states that the equation must and will always balance; it’s just a matter of time.
Vertical farming enables one to grow up to 100X more in a fraction amount of the space, without using any pesticides. Furthermore, crops grown in this manner need a fraction of the amount of water and fertiliser used on a conventional farm.
Tech Trends 2020: Plenty unlimited
It uses 5% of the water and 1% of the land a typical farm would use. They use machine learning to improve the process continually. You can eat their produce straight out of the box without having to wash them, as they use no pesticides and maintain ultra-high standards of hygiene. AI will continue to refine this process and the only area left to fine-tune is energy consumption. Currently, Plenty can grow one million plants at a time and process up to 200 plants per minute. If they can improve on energy consumption as they have done with land usage and water consumption, then the farming scene is going to change drastically in a relatively short period. Note that it will be AI that will be coming up with a solution to improve the overall efficiency and as computing power increases so will the power of AI.
It’s backed by some big names, Softbank, Eric Schmidt (Alphabet’s chairman), Bezos, Louis bacon, etc.
From their site
Grown so clean that no washing is required. Just perfect, ready-to-eat greens free of pesticides and GMOs. We grow produce using less than 5% of the water and less than 1% of the land compared to outdoor farms which is less taxing on the planet.
Our sensor system ensures each plant gets exactly the amount of purified water it needs. Any excess water is recycled through a closed-loop irrigation system resulting in greatly reduced water consumption and zero waste. LED lights utilised in our farms provide light in the ideal spectrums and amounts for this photosynthesis. These photosynthetic wavelengths are synced with the crop’s growth to minimise energy usage and optimise yields.
Video on Plenty Unlimited
Albertson has inked out a deal with Plenty
Albertsons: Fresh off its June initial public offering, Albertsons Companies Inc (NYSE: ACI) announced an agreement to offer fresh produce made by Plenty Unlimited, a vertical farming company.
Plenty operates a sustainable indoor vertical farm that can grow produce all year long. The company heavily relies on technology to grow produce, including data analytics, machine learning and customised lighting.
The agreement calls for Plenty to supply produce to more than 430 stores across California.
Tech Trends 2020: Iron OX
This is one of the new players, and it claims that almost everything is done by robots at least as far as the harvesting is concerned. One can only imagine how much the farming landscape could change 3-6 years from today
We’ve designed our growing system around the sun, an approach that uses less energy than other modern forms of farming. Our hydroponic growing system uses 90% less water over traditional farming while growing 30 times the number of crops per acre of land.
Video highlighting the Iron Ox all robotic farming system
While the video put out by Plenty unlimited shows happy faces and talks about the human element, eventually they will be forced to replace the human factor. A hybrid version of Plenty unlimited and Iron Ox will be what dominates the landscape in the future.
There is no reason why some company could not come out with reasonably priced a unit, capable of sustaining all the members of a given household. Once this becomes a reality; it will mark the end of the big farms whose focus is only on profits. The landscape is going to change dramatically in the years to come.
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