"AI is driving change in so many aspects, also in farming. Yet, we want to approach that from a down-to-earth point of view. In farming though, I don't think we can call it AI yet, because we need to collect much more data first," says Ard van de Kreeke, Founder and CEO of Growy, a vertical farming company. After collecting the right amount of data points, you can create a reliable dataset where AI can start managing the tools to better control the system. "We're a few years away. Before allowing AI to tell us what to do in the farm, it should be used to make our farming more effective, not as a goal," he concludes.
Finishing its second day of the Asia Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit, in Singapore, we want to continue a panel from day 1 which dived into 'Protected cropping and indoor agtech'. Led by Sky Kurtz, Founder & CEO at Pure Harvest, and joined by Lyndal Hugo, Co-Founder of Orlar, Ard van de Kreeke, Founder & CEO at Growy, Edwin Ong, Director of ArianeTech Pte Ltd, and Simon Meijer, CEO at CE-Line.
Are we overhyping AI in CEA?
Continuing the conversation, Edwin shared that he started exploring AI a few years ago, which was an overhyped term. "Right now, we are very dependent on a head grower. Therefore, we want to introduce the know-how into an AI-run system helping growers to manage the farm in the very distant future. We want to use AI not for the hype, but we want to have serious use for it.
For the panelists to stay realistic, Lyndal jumped in, "CEA is an asset subclass for VC investment. Since when is a base or foundation of Maslow's hierarchy described as a subclass of VC investment? It's a staple product, food, and people are prepared to pay an x amount of money for it. Everything is only seen as a massive failure compared to some expectations that were created. Make sure you set the right expectations."
Getting everything right, in every chain
A humbling story, as Sky puts it, is "When we got our production and climate right, we were able to produce beautiful products and retailers accepting them. I then thought, that's it, we just need to add water and grow the produce." Yet, that turned out too good to be true. It's very easy to lose a lot of money between a well-harvested and well-yielded product. "Luckily we were able to fix it early on." As Sky highlights, this industry is deeply complex. Growers have to be multiple companies in one to get everything from production to capturing value, right. And at the same time, they're expected to deliver a perishable product that's highly regulated. "Therefore, I would say, that's a humbling experience."
"The grower needs to know what energy covers the results to produce that one kilogram of greens," says Edwin. By obtaining all usage numbers, operators will be able to create an energy consumption pattern for the farm and have better control over the cost of production. Then you'd know where to sell your produce and what kind of crop to grow that appeals to the masses.
How CEA can help retail
"We're seeing consumers wanting more produce, whereas, retailers are struggling with who to partner with because of the tragedies," commented Craig Hurlbert, Founder and CEO of Local Bounti, a greenhouse grower of leafy greens and herbs. He then asked the panelists "Are you seeing the same traction and stickiness with the customer and as new products are developed over time?"
From a Pure Harvest perspective, which is based in the UAE, Sky Kurtz commented, "When a local producer shorts the retailer, apart from imported produce, it will hit them. It's not like they can go next door to fill up that gap." Acknowledging that Pure Harvest has struggled to get the support of retailers. It was not because of their lack of support, but rather for Pure Harvest through the inability to provide security of supply and reliability at a level they needed. "Now scaled into multiple assets, and well adopted, retailers are supporting us in a lot of aspects, like merchandise, and more. That's because we're driving sales per m2 in the grocery stores, consumers love it and there's a great sell-through rate. Yet the challenge remains, having a minimum efficient scale to be able to serve them."