Since the beginning of the year, the trade war with the United States has unleashed a growing wave of Canadian patriotism.

WHY IT MATTERS: Vertical farms producing leafy greens and other types of produce can decrease Canada’s reliance on imports from the United States.

This sentiment is translating into increased desire by consumers to buy Canadian-made products and support Canadian companies — and consumers are speaking with their wallets.

That’s been the experience at GoodLeaf Farms, a vertical farm growing baby greens, micro greens and salad mixes in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. According to CEO Andy O’Brien, interest from retailers and consumers has skyrocketed over the last few months.

“March 4 was the turning point for consumers, and I have never seen Canadians be more Canadian than now,” said O’Brien, referring to the first day that the U.S. imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods.

“We saw a doubling of demand overnight, which is very challenging.”

The company works on a 21-day order cycle, so although there’s a certain amount of wiggle room for immediate production increases, more substantial growth takes a bit of time to ramp up.

GoodLeaf is ready, though, with two 115,000 square foot farms in Montreal and Calgary rapidly expanding their production, and a new research and development centre shortly launching at the 50,000 square foot Guelph facility. The new centre will focus on product development with light, air and water as well as sensory testing to continually improve crop taste and quality.

GoodLeaf’s products are sold nation-wide in major retailers including Loblaw’s and Sobeys. Micro greens take eight to nine days to reach market readiness, whereas lettuce and baby greens need approximately 17 to 19 days until they’re ready for harvest.

All nutrients are added through the water, which is fed to the plants via their root system, and 98 per cent of the water that’s used is recycled.

“We measure yields per tray, how dense the plants are, the texture, aroma, taste and appearance through daily internal testing,” said O’Brien, adding that Guelph will soon be adding an automated weighing system to its facility, eliminating one of the few manual aspects of the production process.

“What I want to get to is that no one touches the product except the person who bought it,” he said.

This attention to detail gives GoodLeaf’s products extraordinary shelf life compared to other greens — approximately three weeks for lettuce, for example — and it’s one of the benefits that O’Brien sees resonating with consumers.

“We are Canadian, we’re sustainable, have a smaller footprint and grow 365 days a year, but that’s not enough to get consumers to buy,” he said.

“You need awareness, trial and repeat — awareness (by consumers) was slow at first but when we got them to try our product, the repeat rate was high.”

He chalks that up to products that are more nutrient dense and flavourful than conventional greens, that, when combined with the environmental benefits and reduced food waste, give consumers what they’re looking for.

GoodLeaf’s innovative smaller packaging is also a benefit.

“The majority of consumers have one to two children now,” he explained. “And Gen X and the Boomer generations are focused on health, nutrition and longevity. They will be the buying power for the next 10 to 15 years and we are set up to meet their needs.”

O’Brien is the first to admit that vertical farming hasn’t generally been successful, as companies struggle to successfully commercialize their products and grab consumer attention while making a profit. GoodLeaf is changing the playbook, however, by building its brand, professionalizing operations and focusing on products that resonate with consumers.

According to O’Brien, the Guelph facility has already reached profitability, and he expects Calgary and Montreal to be there in the next three to six months.

“We’ll be the first vertical farm worldwide with all facilities profitable,” he noted, adding that he has big visions for the company’s future and where it could go.

“Let’s build an Amazon facility — that’s my dream, to have one million square feet that could serve all of Ontario.”

The post Canada’s GoodLeaf Farms on track to become first vertical farm worldwide with all facilities profitable appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“It’s a very bold vision, but yeah, it’s my vision,” she said. “Why not? We have a short growing season and we have so much talent here. We have quite a lot of resources already available in Winnipeg.”

Why it matters: Vertical farming, which stacks crops in climate controlled conditions for maximum growth and space efficiency, can give remote communities access to fresh vegetables year round.

Semenchuk started her company, The Little Greenhouse That Could, to help facilitate her vision.

Despite the name, the company has no physical greenhouse. As a consultancy for those interested in setting up vertical farming operations, the crop she grows is future farmers and farm business. Her goal is to establish a cluster of people who have bought into the business model in Manitoba.

“I genuinely think that if enough people got on board, we could definitely make it a vertical farming capital,” said Semenchuk.

“But we might not. I’m OK with making a bold vision that doesn’t come true because, at the end of the day, it’s not up to me if Manitoba becomes this capital. It’s going to be based on whether we get enough community buy-in. My company alone would not be able to do that.”

Planting seeds

The idea took root during the pandemic. Semenchuk had previously been interested in sustainable development and the adoption of new technology in the face of climate change, and the pandemic heightened her concern around food security.

At the time, she was working as an environmental engineer but was looking to make a change.

“I was walking around one day and I just kept thinking, ‘I wish that there were greenhouses everywhere.’ So I decided to just quit my job and start up a greenhouse business,” said Semenchuk.

“I didn’t really know anything about greenhouses or vertical farms, but I was just like, ‘OK, I’m just going to learn, and I’m just going to do this.’”

To build her knowledge of vertical farming, she went back to school for her masters degree at the University of Manitoba. Her thesis topic looked to validate an energy model focused specifically on vertical farming, and her studies included the design, construction and operation of a working vertical farm on the university campus.

“That’s where my research work comes from,” said Semenchuk.

Operating under the department of biosystems engineering, the farm in the university’s Sustainability in Action Facility is housed in an enclosed structure with no natural light. Plants are stacked vertically, with photosynthesis facilitated through LED lighting rather than sunlight.

“We’re focused on leafy greens right now at the U of M, but that’s just because we’re just getting the first farm started,” Semenchuk said. “It’s easier to validate that your systems are working correctly with leafy greens because they have a faster growth rate.”

The university is also pursuing a second hydroponic system that will feature larger plants like tomatoes and peppers. Eventually, they hope to expand to other crops and berries.

Semenchuk brought her message to Government House at the Manitoba Legislative grounds on April 9 during a special speaking event.

“The event was great,” she said. “I really enjoy talking about the work that I’m doing in research, community work and the projects that we’re doing through Little Greenhouse. It was really great to engage with the community, especially on the research side of things. It was an opportunity to share what kind of research is happening at the U of M.”

One project involves collaboration with Siloam Mission to establish a small, vertical farming operation.

“They can use the wall to grow produce for people in their shelter and they can sell extra produce to their volunteers,” she said, adding that the project could also impart useful skills for those using Siloam Mission’s services.

“They can train people who are using their shelter to become vertical farmers.”

Buy-in

A number of vertical farming operations have already established in Manitoba. Harvest Today is a U.S.-based company with a facility near Winnipeg, where it grows produce under “vertigation”— walls of plants grown under artificial light in peat cups, fed by a vertical system of water and nutrition.

However, the company’s main business is selling modular vertical farming systems. It has gained an international customer base, including communities in remote areas that could benefit from locally grown produce options.

The company took its system to the Innovations Showcase of Manitoba Ag Days last year. Like the farm at the U of M, it was focused on leafy greens but had plans to expand into other produce.

Plans have also been announced to retrofit Brandon’s McKenzie Seeds building into a massive vertical farming operation under the auspices of Brandon Fresh Farms.

The business model for vertical farming does face challenges. There is an expanding bubble of entrants into the sector globally but bubbles tend to pop when faced with the realities of making the concept profitable.

Many early (and now failed) vertical farming operations “were started by people who had no agricultural background whatsoever,” Thomas Graham, University of Guelph assistant professor and PhytoGro research chair in controlled environment systems, told the Co-operator last year as part of an analysis on the rise of vertical farming in Canada.

“They loved the idea, they were sold on it, and they threw a bunch of money at it. That was one issue.”

Advances in indoor lighting have made vertical farming more feasible, he noted at the time, but energy consumption remains a wrinkle.

“The vertical farming sector right now is at a point where leafy greens, baby greens, microgreens, etcetera, are all certainly economically feasible right now, and a good number of the farms are actually finally making money with those crops,” he said. “But you’re never going to feed the world on lettuce.”

The next steps

Semenchuk plans to continue outreach efforts and set up more vertical farm projects.

“I’m taking steps towards getting more projects and getting more vertical farming initiatives happening in Winnipeg, which will help achieve that vision,” she said.

Her immediate goal is to grow her brand awareness and undertake community engagement initiatives like the April 9 speaking event.

“The more people know and are educated about the benefits of local food production, the more support we’ll get for getting small-scale projects going and the more support we’ll get for research into vertical farming,” said Semenchuk. “It’s kind of like a snowball.”

The post Vertical farming champion looks to stack Manitoba’s future appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

How humanity feeds itself has created challenges ranging from its contribution to climate change to weaknesses that were exposed by COVID-19 such as fragile just-in-time supply chains.

To address these challenges, there are three promising technologies — vertical, cellular and precision agriculture — that can remake the relationship to land and food.

Innovators have been growing crops indoors since Roman times. What is new is the efficiency of LED lighting and advanced robotics that allow vertical farms today to produce 20 times more food on the same footprint as is possible in the field.

Most vertical farms only produce greens, such as lettuce, herbs and microgreens, because they are quick and profitable, but within five years many more crops will be possible as the cost of lighting continues to fall and technology develops.

The controlled environments of vertical farms slash pesticide and herbicide use, can be carbon neutral and they recycle water.

Cellular agriculture, or the science of producing animal products without animals, heralds even bigger change. In 2020 alone, hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into the sector, and in the past few months, the first products have come to market.

Precision agriculture is another big frontier. Soon self-driving tractors will use data to plant the right seed in the right place, and give each plant exactly the right amount of fertilizer, cutting down on energy, pollution and waste.

Taken together, vertical, cellular and precision farming should allow us the ability to produce more food on less land and with fewer inputs. Ideally, we will be able to produce any crop, anywhere, any time of year.

Of course, these technologies are no panacea. No technology ever is. For one thing, while these technologies are maturing rapidly, they aren’t quite ready for mainstream deployment. Many remain too expensive for small- and medium-sized farms and may drive farm consolidation.

Some consumers and food theorists are cautious, wondering why we can’t produce our food the way our great-grandparents did. Critics of these agricultural technologies call for agri-ecological or regenerative farming that achieves sustainability through diversified, small-scale farms that feed local consumers. Regenerative agriculture is promising, but it isn’t clear it will scale.

While these are serious considerations, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to food security. For instance, alternative small-scale mixed-crop farms also suffer labour shortages and typically produce expensive food that is beyond the means of lower-income consumers.

But it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. There are benefits and drawbacks to all approaches and we cannot achieve our climate and food security goals without also embracing agricultural technology.

By taking the best aspects of alternative agriculture (namely the commitment to sustainability and nutrition), the best aspects of conventional agriculture (the economic efficiency and the ability to scale) and novel technologies such as those described above, the world can embark on an agricultural revolution that — when combined with progressive policies around labour, nutrition, animal welfare and the environment — will produce abundant food while reducing agriculture’s footprint on the planet.

-This is an abridged version of an article that first appeared in the Conversation and is reposted under Creative Commons.

The post Opinion: Improving our food system appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Many seem like sci-fi greenhouses: hydroponics, plants growing in stacks or up walls and high-tech sensor setups that seem straight out of the mind of Gene Roddenberry.

And, with an increasing number of companies trying to make a go of it in Canada, vertical farming has become a buzzword.

“Vertical farming is too broad of a term, in my opinion,” said Thomas Graham, assistant professor and PhytoGro research chair in controlled environment systems at the University of Guelph. “When I say vertical farming, I’m talking about stacked multi-layer production systems, or plant factories.”

Why it matters: Vertical farming could provide fresh produce year-round to remote communities.

Beyond the ability to control light and temperature, the production system has made waves as a system in which pests and pathogens can be eliminated, chemical input costs shortened considerably and the risk of contamination can be limited. Lettuce, for example, is a common product for vertical operations. It is also a product at the heart of several salmonella scares.

In terms of medicinal crops and plant-based pharmaceuticals, the controlled environment of vertical farms is ideal.

“If you take those plants that are making a drug [compound] and grow them in different environments, a drug could be different. So you need to give it the same conditions 365 days a year. You can only do that indoors,” Graham said.

It is unrealistic to imagine a future where vertical farming replaces ag as we know it, he added, but it can be seen as complementary to field production.

“It’s just another piece of the food supply puzzle that is getting more and more complex.”

Setting the seed

Vertical production, like all greenhouses, comes down to lighting. But while greenhouses let in light and trap heat, they are still dependent on sunlight and susceptible to cold weather. Vertical operations don’t leave those variables up to chance.

The history of grow lighting stretches back for decades. The 70 years after the invention of the electric light bulb in 1879 saw a steady stream of improvements that helped develop lighting for plant growth. By the 1960s, metal halide and high-pressure sodium lamps had emerged in the horticultural sphere. Greenhouses could now supplement their lighting to extend the growing season and, today, even run year-round with the help of other advances, like insulating energy curtains.

“You can do indoor farming in just a single layer with a fairly high roof using these high-pressure sodium [or] metal halide lights,” said Graham.

Many cannabis farms use this technique.

Building up

To shrink the historically sprawling footprint of a greenhouse and make farming stackable, more advanced lighting was needed. Metal halide lights, for example, tend to throw off a lot of heat, Graham noted.

In a regular greenhouse, that can be an advantage if the facility can capture the heat load and use it to regulate winter temperatures. In a vertical operation, where lighting is typically much closer to foliage and produce, it becomes a problem.

“They’re good lights, but they’re really hot,” Graham said. “You can’t get too close.”

Advances in LED lighting, which run much cooler, would eventually solve that problem. The first LED lights were invented in 1958, but it would take decades for them become useful horticulturally.

“The use of LEDs for horticultural lighting actually started in the space program, with some NASA grants,” said Graham. “Up to that point, they weren’t all that efficient.”

LED advancements began to take off in the early 2010s. As they evolved, so did their promise as a horticultural light source.

These lights have fairly narrow wave bands, allowing generation of different colours. This allowed NASA researchers to identify the parts of the spectrum (red and blue light) that plants best absorb.

“Their reasoning was to use what chlorophyll absorbs best so as not to waste photons on things the plant isn’t using,” said Graham. “That’s why, on a lot of these farms, you’ll see this kind of really annoying magenta light.”

As LEDs became more efficient, the understanding of a plant’s relationship with light also evolved. Other colours on the spectrum were found to play roles in plant development.

“LEDs have allowed us to start to play with the colour of light that we apply to a plant, and that is profoundly impactful,” said Graham. “You can take the same set of genetics and apply a different environment and that plant will be different. It will taste different, it will look different and it will have a different nutritional fingerprint.”

That’s highlighted in a recent Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada study. The study looked at different combinations of red, blue and amber LED lights to see how they affect the production of carotenoids (antioxidant pigments) in brassica microgreens.

The study discovered that when amber-blue light was increased and red light was decreased, carotenoid content rose significantly.

The spread of vertical farming

Visitors to Canada’s circuit of agricultural trade shows will have seen a number of booths devoted to vertical farming. Others have been highlighted in media reports.

One such company, which participated in the 2023 Manitoba Ag Days Innovation Showcase, has put down roots outside Winnipeg.

Harvest Today Canada uses what it describes as “vertigation,” a wall of soil-filled peat cups, vertically irrigated and formed with interlocking modules reminiscent of Lego blocks.

As of January, the company was operating a 720-plant wall at its Winnipeg facility, but was also selling the technology to communities looking to set up their own plant walls. They had an international customer list, and had flagged the potential for remote communities such as Canada’s North.

In Ottawa, a company called Growcer is using stacked growing systems under LED lighting. Company co-founder Alida Burke was inspired to enter the vertical farming marketplace after a trip to Iqaluit in 2015.

The company began using shipping containers to house its hydroponic operation, but soon discovered space limitations. Now it houses its farms in 40-foot insulated modular containers and operates more than 70 farms across Canada.

Another incoming enterprise hopes to refurbish the long-empty McKenzie Seeds building in downtown Brandon. According to local media reports, Brandon Fresh Farms is investing $30 million to retrofit the 120,000-square-foot heritage building into a massive vertical farm.

Early estimates suggest that farm will be able to grow 180 tonnes of food per month. Construction is slated for early in the New Year and the company hopes to produce vegetables by 2025.

“The potential is there for some real contributions to things like food insecurity in urban or northern remote communities,” said Graham. “I think that this upswell of optimism about the technology and this realization that we can grow food right beside us indoors all fit into that.”

Bursting the bandwagon bubble

It’s not all good news.

In July, McGill University bioresource engineering professor Mark Lefsrud noted headwinds facing the sector. He was quoted as part of a BBC article titled “Lean times hit the vertical farming business.”

The article noted vertical farms that have hit stumbling blocks, such as U.S.-based AeroFarms, which filed for bankruptcy protection this summer. One French company has gone into receivership, BBC reported, while other U.S. companies have laid off staff.

A release by McGill University said European vertical farming company Infarm has changed its focus from Europe to “regions with lower energy costs.”

“This shift signifies the challenges in maintaining profitability while keeping sustainability promises,” the release noted. “Vertical farming stands at a critical juncture, with its promise and potential weighed against the realities of implementation.”

Infarm’s shift was also noted by the BBC.

Graham thinks the wheat has mostly been separated from the chaff by now.

“The majority of those farms were started by people who had no agricultural background whatsoever,” he said. “They loved the idea, they were sold on it, and they threw a bunch of money at it. That was one issue.”

Another issue was the industry-spanning shipping container craze, said Graham. Many indoor farming businesses were seduced by the sturdy, relatively cheap structures, but they proved to be less of a boon than many hoped.

“In limited circumstances, shipping containers can be effective, but generally they aren’t,” said Graham. You don’t get the economies of scale.”

Finally, there’s the bandwagon effect.

“It’s the same with any nascent industry. You get that bubble, and that bubble has burst,” said Graham. “The good ones are surviving, and they’re making profits now.”

Lessons learned

As the industry matures, Graham says the lessons learned from early startups can be helpful for today’s entrepreneurs.

For instance, Olds College in Alberta is launching an indoor agriculture certificate program next fall. It’s the first of its kind in Canada and Jay Steeves, dean of the college’s Werklund School of Agriculture Technology and one of the program’s developers, has noted the interest.

“We did a feasibility study at the college and there’s probably about 50 or 60 different corporations around the area that are dabbling in this and would love to have more people with a skill set kind across that entire spectrum,” he said.

The sky isn’t the limit; energy is

Energy is still a major limiting factor for vertical farming. Even with new, efficient LEDs, any large-scale, intensive operation will require a lot of power.

“The vertical farming sector right now is at a point where leafy greens, baby greens, microgreens, et cetera, are all certainly economically feasible right now, and a good number of the farms are actually finally making money with those crops,” said Graham. “But you’re never going to feed the world on lettuce.”

Those types of crops offer a quick turnaround, limiting the energy dollars that go into each unit sold.

Harvest Today started with greens and herbs, but as of Ag Days in January, was developing the technology to expand into flowering plants like tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

Graham also noted the work being done now to develop the production system for higher-caloric crops, or crops with higher fibre or protein. There, plant breeding will have to keep up.

“You can breed shorter crops, so you can squeeze more in,” he said. “You can also make more of the plant edible.”

Plants could also be bred to have lower light requirements, he said.

“Let’s be realistic. There will always be field agriculture. There will always be greenhouses. This is just the next technologically advanced step.”

The post The climb of vertical farming appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Outside the walls of the Manitoba Ag Days Innovation Showcase, it was still the depths of winter.

Gardens were still buried under a thick covering of snow. Planting season was still months away; the first produce of 2023 was even further. Inside the re-purposed barn in Brandon’s Keystone Centre, however, leafy greens were thriving.

The walls of greenery sticking out against the industrial lighting and cement floors belonged to Harvest Today, a US-based company with a Canadian operation near Winnipeg.

The company specializes in what they dub “vertigation,” a form of indoor farming that grows produce vertically in irrigated walls. Looking something like Lego blocks, the modular sections are interlocked to build each custom-sized harvest wall. The design directs pumped water evenly through the structure.

“What we’ve been able to do is get an international design and utility patent for the back of the wall,” said William Aitken, director of operations for Harvest Today Canada. “The design patent is the way the water flows from the top to bottom, saturates the peat cups, hits the fins and then gets re-circulated back into the system.”

The company has heralded their harvest walls as a tool for efficient, sustainably-grown local food, regardless of what climate their customer might be in. Small commercial farms, community-based programs and remote communities make up the target customer base.

Why it matters: The technology could provide local, nutritious food to remote communities that would otherwise have to spend money and burn fuel to get it shipped.

The company started honing prototypes in 2020, according to CEO Rick Langille. Three years later, they’re in full production.

“We’ve got a full service where we can actually take the footprint of a farm and actually be able to cube it out and be able to give you a full spec on how to best fit it, how to best build it,” he said.

The idea for the technology came out of Langille’s previous work in business development in the greenhouse sector. There was a gap in the industry’s profit equation, he increasingly realized. Plant density was too low. So, he set out to design something better.

Harvest Today’s current model is limited to foliage-oriented edibles. Leafy greens are one such product, while other customers are using the technology to grow herbs.

And while the idea of indoor farming isn’t new — and no longer limited to science fiction — Harvest Today argues that their design avoids some of the pitfalls of current hydroponics or aeroponics.

For one, the harvest wall isn’t hydroponic (where water is the growth medium) or aeroponic (where roots are exposed to air). The two-inch peat cups that populate the wall still are still filled with soil, and because each peat cup is self-contained, the design makes it easy to switch out old plants to keep the wall lush and producing.

“When you see people and they take a plant and they show you a hydroponic or an aeroponically grown plant, they’ve got these big massive root balls. That’s a plant actually seeking to get more nutrients,” Langille said. “If you look at ours, guess what? We don’t have a ton of roots, but we have a ton of green, because that’s the part that we eat.”

The result, the company claims, is both better harvest and better taste, with the plants more focused on producing vegetation, and more closely mimicking how they would grow if planted conventionally.

The stats

The requirements for each harvest wall will depend on the customer, since each order is customized for the buyer.

Their Winnipeg facility boasts a 720-plant wall, Aitken noted, which requires them to operate a 24-volt DC bilge pump for three minutes, three times a day to meet its water needs. Under Manitoba Hydro rates, the company estimates the energy cost of watering the wall at about 15 cents an hour.

The other energy cost is lighting. The Winnipeg facility wall uses about one kilowatt per hour to run a series of 125-watt grow lights. The company is paying about nine cents per kilowatt hour for each of the 16 hours the wall is lit per day.

In total, Aitken estimated, a wall like theirs would run the customer anywhere from $1.50-$1.60 a day.

Harvest volumes will depend on climate controls and growing conditions.

Aitken pointed to one customer, who harvests both leafy greens and herbs. Herbs are harvested every second day under that system, he noted, while leafy greens are picked weekly. Aitken estimated that system yields about 30-35 pounds of basil each week.

Anyone looking to integrate a harvest wall into their business, rather than personal consumption, may find it more expensive than a conventional supplier, he acknowledged.

“It really all depends on what the value that person had placed on fresh produce,” he said. “So if you’re okay with going and opening up a box of produce and having half of it rotted out and having the other half of it with no nutritional value whatsoever, and you’re okay with that, at the end of the day, you might be paying a little bit more for our basil, because we are selling it for $2.75-$3 an ounce, but the quality of product that you’re getting off and the availability to put that on somebody else’s plate, compared to what you get from [a food wholesaler], it’s night and day.”

Langille estimates that plants will need to be switched out every three to four months as they lose flavour, get bitter, or slow production.

Replacement cups are germinated in batches outside the wall for about four or five weeks, so that there is a ready supply of mature plants.

Gaining traction

The company has seen international interest in the technology. Walls have been sold to customers in the U.K., Turkey, Dubai, India, Australia and Chile. In the largest order to date, 25 “mega walls” were shipped to the Caribbean island of Saint Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Domestically, Harvest Today is gaining traction in the north, where they say their walls could be vital for food security and easier access to fresh food. Systems have already been installed in the Yukon, while the company is in the process of setting up a wall in Iqaluit.

More types of produce are also on the horizon.

The company is in the process of expanding their offerings into flowering plants.

Walls with larger peat cups have been developed and are currently put to work growing strawberries.

The company hopes to expand into other crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.

“That speaks to the versatility of the invention of the harvest all in general because we are going to be very adaptable. We’re not going to be stuck growing one specific type of plant,” Langille said.

The company expects to see those larger cups and walls on the market by the third quarter of 2023.

– Video by Greg Berg

The post VIDEO: Growing upwards appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

This ‘Smart Farm’ is Stephanie Cook’s domain on Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN), more than 600 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

After more than six years of farming, Cook can walk into the room and smell if something is wrong with the crop. She can diagnose a faulty return pump or sensor by sound.

In a space designed to grow leafy greens, Cook and her team have grown melons, strawberries and flowers.

Yet, ‘Bertha’ is just getting started.

Using Korean vertical-farming technology, Cook and her team are growing food tailored to improve the health of community members living with diabetes, and hopefully to reduce the number of diabetes cases going forward.

Up next – they aim to begin a co-operative of farming across northern communities.

A different kind of farm

Cook has fond memories of summers on the family farm on Peguis First Nation. She was pretty young at the time so her memories are vague — but a lot of them involve great food.

Her aunties would cook big pots of soup for all the kids and bake fresh bread or bannock.

Yet before Cook managed OCN’s Smart Farm, she worked at a bank.

Cook recalled her skepticism when she showed up to an informal interview for the farm job. She got there, and they handed her blueprints. That’s how she found out what OCN, in partnership with Korea Agriculture Systems Technology (KAST), had planned.

“They were going to be building a hydroponic operation, and I was like, ‘in the north… In a community hall?’” Cook said. “My initial thought was ‘these guys are crazy.’”

A computer-controlled, hydroponic, vertical farm sounded like sci-fi — and something that would break in a year. Veggies grown under lights and floating in water with designer nutrients sounded like the makings of fake food.

The farm takes up about 830 square feet of the OCN community centre. It has four ‘lanes’ of four, 3×22-foot beds. Each bed can hold 336 plants.

It can grow year round, no matter the weather.

It started with seven varieties of vegetables. At first, Cook wouldn’t eat them. Her neighbours weren’t keen either. They’d grown under artificial light. They lasted far longer than vegetables trucked into the community. Were they real?

She realized if she liked veggies, she had to try them. Cook took a leaf of kale, dipped it in some balsamic vinegar, and took a bite. It was good.

Battling diabetes

The Smart Farm is OCN’s answer to endemic diabetes in the community.

More than half of the community has Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, or is pre-diabetic, Cook said.

“It’s very upsetting,” said Cook. “It’s people I grew up with.”

She has friends her age (late 30s) who are “full-blown diabetics,” Cook said. It’s hard to see people she grew up with, played basketball with, and hung out with on the weekends confined to a wheelchair, unable to work, or dying from complications.

With the Smart Farm, not only can OCN grow fresh vegetables for the community, but it can tailor crops and crop inputs to provide the best possible foods for diabetes patients.

Cook and her team worked with University of Manitoba researcher Miyoung Suh to analyze their vegetables for nutrient concentrations and to test for safety.

Compared to local grocery store fare, the vegetables tested higher in nutrients like vitamin C, Suh said during a U of M webinar on May 19.

Moving forward, they should be able to grow ‘functional vegetables’ using the adjustable parameters of the farm, Suh said. Then they can analyze the vegetables for their efficacy against diseases like diabetes.

“That’s the beauty of the system is that you can alter those nutrients and alter the formula to meet the need of the patient,” Cook said.

She continues to do research on how to best do that, and how to maximize the farm’s potential.

Researchers from KAST have also spent years studying diabetes in their own communities, she added. They’ve been able to share knowledge on how to help patients.

It’s led to growing plants heretofore unknown in the community. For instance, Cook has grown a leafy green called mizuna, and green perilla — a member of the mint family. Both are common in East Asia.

This has meant learning how to use them so she can teach community members, Cook said.

“I’ve been watching a lot of mukbang videos,” she said, referring to a Korean food video phenomenon.

Growing benefits

Since 2016, they’ve begun to see gradual improvements in community members’ health, Cook said. New diagnosis of diabetes in the community is decreasing slowly.

They’ve seen additional health benefits, however.

The Smart Farm has been a place of refuge and healing for some. For instance, troubled young people have worked at the Smart Farm as part of community service hours. They’d usually have enough hours to work through an entire growing cycle and see what it means to produce a crop.

“It was like a form of therapy,” Cook said.

This may be heightened by the purposefully peaceful atmosphere Cook cultivates at the farm. She’s read studies showing how human interaction can affect plants. Negative interactions can actually harm the plants, Cook said.

She asks her staff to communicate if they’re having a bad day. They don’t allow swearing in the room. They won’t listen to music with certain frequencies or vibes — this rules out rap and heavy metal.

Instead, Cook plays a ‘plant therapy’ track for the crop for an hour a day — all chimes and tones chosen to help it thrive.

Cook said she’s seen young people come into the farm angry at the world be more peaceful and willing to talk by the time they finish their community service.

Sustainable food

COVID-19 has hampered work on the farm. When Cook spoke with the Co-operator it was just starting up again after an extended stint of isolation. She can control many aspects of the farm from her phone, but she can’t mix the nutrients or harvest the crops.

The Smart Farm is also restructuring.

Supply chain interruptions, floods, droughts and produce recalls have shown the community that its food supply is vulnerable.

“We’re feeling the crunch,” Cook said.

They also saw opportunities to become more self-sustaining.

For instance, during a romaine lettuce recall, the Smart Farm grew 5,000 heads of lettuce and was able to supply the area. It showed them what they could do, Cook said.

The OCN Smart Farm has a provincial licence to sell in grocery stores. Cook is working on acquiring a federal licence so it can ship throughout Canada.

Previously, the majority of Smart Farm produce was distributed through community programming.

Going forward, they’re looking at developing a food co-op with other northern communities. The hope is to have multiple communities with farms, each of which could grow its own vegetable cash crop, plus supply fresh produce to the elderly, low income and pregnant or nursing moms in the community.

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