The circular economy is something I was happy to see feature heavily at GreenTech 2020. It seemed to be on everyone’s mind when discussing sustainability, and there was even a dedicated session on it. The topic: vertical farming’s role in the circular economy. Continue reading Circular Urban Farming at GreenTech 2020
Indoor agriculture is touted as sustainable, but it requires a lot of materials – plastics, rockwool, and packaging, for example. How can these be made more circular? Continue reading Biobased Materials: Where Should They Come From, Where Should They Go?
What should the broad vision be to achieve circularity? Circularity is a big theme on this blog. I usually talk about indoor agriculture, but the same concepts apply to our whole food system. At the NVTL’s conference, Martin van Ittersum gave a presentation on a compelling vision to achieve this. Continue reading Circularity, Livestock, and Nutrients
Last week I attended Wageningen Research’s Greenhouse Horticulture business unit’s event on research into circular horticulture for 2025. After the main presentation on the group’s vision and ideas (which you can read about here), there were six short presentations. Three Continue reading Circular Horticulture, Part 2: Pitches
Last Thursday I attended Circular Horticulture 2025, an event organised by Wageningen Research’s Greenhouse Horticulture business unit. The topic was their vision and goals for future research within circular horticulture. Continue reading Circular Horticulture 2025, Part 1: Visions and Goals for Research
Last July, I followed a two-week summer school about agri-business at the University of Nottingham. I spent the first 10 years of my life in rural England and knew a few people with a farming background, but the ins and Continue reading Nottingham: What Drives Success in Agri-Business?
Last week, I attended an evening organised by Heeren XVII, the biosystems engineers’ society at Wageningen University. The theme was insects. A presentation was given by Bart de Ruiter, director of R&D at Proti-Farm, a Dutch company producing insects. Continue reading An Evening with Proti-Farm
Agricultural systems are complex. Data and machine learning can help. But how exactly? Believing something can be useful and knowing how are two different things. PlantGeek are applying data and machine learning to automate aquaponics systems. Continue reading PlantGeek: Machine Learning and Aquaponics
Could it be that the logical conclusion of controlled-environment agriculture is natural ecosystems? If controlled-environment agriculture is to become sustainable, it must be able to use waste as an input for nutrients. In 2016, the AVFami project group* realised that Continue reading Bacteria and Biofilters Are Underrated
It’s strange what can happen within a year. In September, a surreal surprise occurred when I got a presenting spot at TEDxWageningenUniversity in November. My talk was on AMI (aquaponics-mushrooms-insects) systems and how they can connect resource management to health. Continue reading TEDxWageningenUniversity and 2018 in Review