Oct 28, 2021
October 28, 2021, marks the ten-year anniversary of Agritecture.com. What started as a passion project of blogging to spread knowledge about urban agriculture, vertical farming, and rooftop greenhouses to the public, has now grown into the agritecture revolution.
Henry Gordon-Smith, Founder & CEO of Agritecture, started blogging about “agritecture” in 2011, defining it as the art, science, and business of integrating agriculture into the built environment.
“A lot has changed in 10 years: controlled environment agriculture technology has advanced rapidly and begun to scale, the economics of vertical farming are improving, and more policymakers are incentivizing urban agriculture. However, I think the industry still needs to mature especially in regards to better farm business planning, financing, and of course sustainability. The sector will be experiencing some growing pains that have already begun to show and could last for several years. Agritecture is excited to continue to support a thriving industry for decades to come through its current and future offerings. ”
The industry has come a long way over these 10 years, and so have we at Agritecture.
Slowly, our team has grown from one visionary to more than a dozen. We continue to utilize our blog to inspire a new generation of ‘agritects’. With this, Agritecture.com’s visitors by month have grown 5X from June 2019 to May 2021, as can be seen in the chart to the left.
Because of high demand, we now also offer our consulting expertise to new and existing entrepreneurs, intrigued investors, forward-thinking cities, innovative suppliers, and corporations. Through feasibility studies and a variety of other service offerings, we provide our diverse range of clients with the tools, data, knowledge, and network to ensure their success.
After completing 150+ projects worldwide, we started identifying the key hurdles that limit entrepreneurs from building successful businesses. As a result, we launched Agritecture Designer in 2020. This software helps overwhelmed urban agricultural entrepreneurs to build out their models, plan crop selection, create financial plans, and partner with our trusted equipment and financing partners.
Let’s look back at the top posts from 10 years of Agritecture.
It’s hard living in built-up urban cities. It’s even harder to get enough space to grow your own food. Throughout the pandemic, being stuck at home with little to do, people have been reconnecting with their food by growing it themselves. They’ve come to realize that urban gardening techniques can help them grow food even within these limited spaces.
Maybe it’s time you give your green thumb a try. This article identifies ten of the numerous benefits that come from urban gardening, and why it’s the perfect time for you to give it a shot.
Do you have an overwhelming number of questions about soilless agriculture? We, at Agritecture, are asked time and time again for overviews on the basics of urban agriculture and controlled environment agriculture.
Alongside our Commercial Urban Farming course, this old but gold article from early 2019 will give you a strong overview of what soilless agriculture is, the neverending list of advantages, and the typical hydroponic cultivation methods for the optimal customization of a growing operation.
Food security is and always will be at the forefront of global social and environmental issues. We’re seeing more and more vertical farms transcend the boundaries of the food landscape by forcing farmers and entrepreneurs to reimagine what food production and feeding a planet of over 7 billion people could look like.
During the global pandemic, these vertical farming companies were called upon to fill in the gaps that traditional agriculture and food systems were unable to provide for. As a result, there has been endless innovation in the food industry. This article is Agritecture’s list of the most innovative vertical farms of the decade!
This article from Agritecture’s Tumblr from 6 years ago showcases NEWFARM/NEWYORK, an urban food hub and vertical farm in Chelsea, Manhattan that represents an evolution of both agriculture and architecture. In the midst of the complexity of the concrete jungle, one purpose of NEWFARM was to produce fresh vegetables for its inhabitants and visitors all year long, making it a place where buyers and sellers of food can interact with makers, artists, and growers.
Urban gardening is tricky. Your plants, like your children, require the right conditions to grow up in if they are to blossom and flourish. They also need a lot of tender loving, care and attention on your part. Lacking this, they quickly wither away and die. But be careful - sometimes, being over-cared for can also be a reason for their demise.
This article has 6 common reasons your garden may be dying.
While indoor agriculture may seem like a very modern way of producing food, the truth is that people have been growing food in controlled environments for thousands of years. Greenhouses have been around for a lot longer than vertical farms—millennia in fact! This 3-part article series by Agritecture & Plug and Play provides an overview of the greenhouse industry: past, present and future.
In 2021, Agritecture witnessed major audience growth from the Philippines, which now ranks as #3 in terms of website traffic by country.
Urban Roots is an indoor, hydroponic farm and a greenhouse growing microgreens, lettuce, strawberries, and other unique leafy vegetables in the heart of Metro Manila. This humble 280 sqm farm is built inside a retrofitted garage, delivering mainly to diet-food delivery companies, a juicing company, culinary schools, and individuals who order weekly. However, as the nation’s capital continues to battle long transportation miles, high delivery costs, and increasingly frequent typhoons, their goal to build indoor farms across the city has tremendous potential.
This article from Agritecture’s Tumblr features Ron Gagliardo, former Sr. Manager of Horticultural Services at Amazon. Some say Gagliardo might have had the most unusual job at Amazon. He spent most of his time tending to the thousands of plants destined for the Spheres, the 90-foot bulbous glass dome in the middle of Amazon’s sprawling campus in downtown Seattle. In 2017, Gagliardo watched as workers pulled an Australian tree fern off of an Amazon Prime truck, carried it through a particularly wide door in one of the spheres, and plopped it into the soil. This particular specimen spent three years growing in Amazon’s conservatory at the edge of town. It was the first of the 40,000 or so plants destined for the domes.
This sponsored article from the vertical farming start-up YASAI emphasizes their focus on growing “more with less for the health of people, plants, and the planet." Blossoming from the desire to feed the world sustainably by integrating the design, construction, and operation of vertical farms, YASAI is building a vertical farm in Switzerland that can potentially yield 3,525 tons of fresh produce per annum, and capture 614 tons of CO2 per annum.
2013 TEDx speaker Bren Smith has set up what he calls “3D ocean farms,” which “utilize the entire ocean column” to grow “restorative species,” including scallops, clams, oysters and kelp. Smith says this makes the oceans cleaner, healthier and more habitable, while providing jobs and food.
The Swedish global company that changed the face of home furnishings has now expanded their mission to take on urban farming. Working with Agritecture to make this industry expansion seamless, IKEA now has “a clear understanding of the supplier landscape for urban farming solutions and what potential partners would match our requirements as well as our values and vision for the future. This was an important base for us to start from that helped us to find the right partners to work with leading to developing technical solutions and operational tests with selected partners.”
This article from Agritecture’s Tumblr discusses how in 2015, NASA astronauts on the International Space Station were going to sit down to a very special meal as they became the first people to ever eat vegetables grown on the station itself. NASA’s Veg-01 experiment was part of a wider mission to create sustainable conditions for NASA’s ongoing Journey to Mars program, with Veggie representing a viable sustainable food source that can be cultivated deep in space, far away from the reach of resupply shuttles.
Thank you for your support over these 10 years! We look forward to continuing to grow our blog, our portfolio of services, and the Designer software to better serve YOU. To show our gratitude, take 10% off your subscription to Agritecture Designer by registering TODAY with code “AGR-Anniversary”.
*Offer expires 12/31/21
