The spirit of the AgTech Breakthrough Awards is to highlight breakthrough solutions and companies within the ag-tech sector and we’re proud to be recognized as the winner in the Overall Agriculture Robotics Solution of the Year category for our automated Crop Motion Technology™ solution.
This technology moves grow trays throughout a CubicFarm System module on an undulating path using a single layer of LED lights instead of the thousands of lights needed in a typical “rack and stack” vertical farm system. Our solution dramatically reduces the energy, land, labour, and water required to grow nutritious food at a commercial scale.
Our technology allows a number of advantages:
CubicFarms uses 1 row of light and 54% less energy than typical vertical farms.
SIGNIFICANLY LESS ENERGY THAN TYPICAL VERTICAL FARMS:
CubicFarm Systems use 54% to 62% less energy compared to results reported by other vertical farms surveyed globally. A CubicFarm can grow a pound of produce with 8 kilowatt hours of electricity, compared with the 17.6-kilowatt hours per pound needed in a typical vertical farm. With electricity being the number one input cost in vertical farming, this is a significant advantage to customers using the CubicFarm System technology.
OPTIMIZES PLANT GROWTH: The single layer of LED lighting at the top of a CubicFarms module provides all the necessary light for plants, even at -40° Celsius in colder climates. Simply put, Crop Motion Technology™ moves plants to the grow lights rather than having dedicated lights for all the plants. The movement of the crops simulates outdoor growing, which makes the plants stronger and less susceptible to burning.
A CubicFarms grower harvesting butter lettuce from a CubicFarm module.
LESS LABOUR: All cubic square footage is maximized in a CubicFarm System and physical labour is reduced through automation, allowing people to harvest from the front doors of the module without using scissor lifts or the need for large walkways between rows, as is typical in other vertical farms.
A CubicFarm System uses 95% less water than traditional farming.
LESS WATER: CubicFarms uses the least amount of water per kilogram of produce (17.56 l/kg) compared with field growing (151 l/kg), greenhouses (51.5 l/kg), and other vertical farming systems (20.4 l/kg).
SCALABLE: The benefits of Crop Motion Technology™ are also realized on a larger scale with FreshHubs. FreshHubs are high-density indoor growing systems using 96 CubicFarms modules. A FreshHub occupies 1 acre of land and can replace 100 acres of field production. Due to its size, it benefits from improved efficiency of the growing system.
Farmers are leaving the profession on an unprecedented scale. CubicFarms’ technology represents an open door to current and aspiring farmers with ag-tech solutions for farmers to grow on a commercial scale with new farm infrastructure, workflow design, and automation components using our full-stack enterprise-ready software platform. Stripping away barriers through technology brings certainty and opportunity to new generations of farmers offering hope of feeding our changing planet.
With over 1,600 nominations this year coming in from all over the world for the 2022 AgTech Breakthrough Awards, the competition was extremely fierce, and we’re proud to be honoured alongside John Deere, Arable, Impossible Foods, Lucent Biosciences, Specright, Seimos, Xero and an impressive list of top companies and startups in the ag-tech and FoodTech industry.
“Our family is dedicated to protecting the prairie. We strive to work smarter on our ranch by applying our business and consulting expertise and focusing on ranch innovation and sustainability. With climate change, technology advances and decreasing natural resources, we know we must operate our ranch differently. With the HydroGreen system, we can now produce better, faster, and stronger for ourselves and the planet.”
“My family is originally from Holland, I grew up on a dairy farm, and I’ve been in the industry all my life. Talking with my parent’s friends who are immersed in the veggie industry, they recommended Iinvestigateoptions to produce lettuce in a sustainable way. I looked into the greenhouse and indoor vertical warehouse systems, but they could not meet my needs. I needed to minimize my risk, space and lower my labor costs.
“After a significant drought and taking over my family ranch, I was looking for a more cost-effective way to produce our fodder. I knew there were better producer options out there, but most of the systems had too much manual labour and seed obligations that were not cost-effective. The HydroGreen system’s value proposition was compelling. The fodder’s nutritive value is exceptional for our herd and the system is time-efficient. I run one piece of machinery for 35 mins a day when in the past, it would have taken me a few hours a day and three machines using traditional equipment. In our neck of the woods, one six-rack HydroGreen system is the equivalent to 320 acres of South Dakota prairie sitting inside a 60 x 40 building. It is essentially drought resistant ‘Land on a Stand’ which produces grass every day, in any weather, in less than an hour.”