In urban jungles and in medical settings it’s refreshing to see food gardens popping up as green roofs. Hospitals are to treat ailing folks, yet the food served to patients is usually over processed and of low quality.

Boston Medical Center (or BMC) is an academic medical center that delivers a model of healthcare where innovative and equitable care empowers all patients to thrive. In June this year Recover Green Roofs celebrated the opening of Newmarket Farm at Boston Medical Center and its 7300 square foot rooftop farm with wheelchair accessible green space.

Related: Interview with Nature’s Path organic and regenerative food business

With raised beds, a pollinator garden, plus an outdoor classroom, the design process highlights a critical collaboration between BMC, Recover Green Roofs, and Higher Ground Farm. Marking Recover’s second design and installation on BMC’s campus following the initial Boston Medical Center Power Plant Farm, both sites collectively forge new community partners and enhance access to fresh foods.

A portion of each harvest is donated to several South End nonprofits, including Rosie’s Place.

In 2022, Mayor Wu established GrowBoston to promote urban agriculture and food production, deploying funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. GrowBoston provided $300,000 to support the expansion of Newmarket Farm. The farm features a unique green roof media blend developed by Ben Flanner of Brooklyn Grange and Chuck Duprey at Naturcycle. They used a locally manufactured version of the innovative blend developed for the Javits Center Expansion Rooftop & Farm, optimized for deep growing crops, long term performance and water management. The growing media depth ranges from 19-23 inches and large growing beds with a granular drainage base retain tens of thousands of gallons of rainwater throughout the year, reducing the need for irrigation.

Related: adding fungi to your green roof urban farms and gardens

A high-tech custom drip irrigation system supplements regional rainfall.

Managed by Sarah Hastings, BMC’s Rooftop Farmer, and Higher Ground Farm, the farm adds valuable green space to the Newmarket District, addresses food insecurity, and offers culturally relevant fresh foods. Cultivating hard-to-find produce, they grow aji dulce, Malabar spinach, Callaloo greens, bok choy, napa cabbage, cranberry beans, and Japanese turnips, among others.

Because of Newmarket Farm’s location overlooking the Boston skyline, it also optimizes sun-loving fruit, including tomatoes, and flowers that attract pollinators. A covered seating area provides education and outreach classes to students from Boston Public Schools, members of local community organizations, and staff & patients to get hands-on training on hyperlocal vegetable gardening. Plus, both BMC rooftop farms serve as a model for other hospitals, understanding that the local environment is intrinsic to supporting the overall health and wellbeing in our communities.

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Infarm, a company that grows fresh produce inside supermarkets, has recently announced a $170 million USD funding round to help the company expand across Europe. Their environment-controlled and automated growing chambers grow food such as leafy greens inside the supermarket, so it’s fresh, without your food accumulating food miles.  

The company was founded by three Israelis in Berlin in 2013, and they announced this astounding investment achievement despite the Covid plague destroying global markets. Food, we understood, is something that must stay constant. The need for food which is grown local, and available fresh now resonates at a time of uncertainty and the basic need for survival.

The company is raising $200 million USD total in their Series C round funding which was by LGT Lightstone, Hanaco, Bonnier, Haniel, and Latitude, Atomico, TriplePoint Capital, Mons Capital and Astanor Ventures.

With a mix of equity and debt financing, the fresh capital brings Infarm’s total funding to date to more than $300 million, underscoring consumer and retailer appetite for Infarm’s approach to fresh, sustainable and local food production in the wake of this year’s pandemic.

By 2025, Infarm’s farming fridge network is expected to reach more than 5,000,000 square feet to become the largest distributed hydroponic network in the world as it builds towards helping cities become self-sufficient in their food production. Competition includes Freight Farms in the US, and BrightFarms, also American. 

“The coronavirus pandemic has put a global spotlight on the urgent agricultural and ecological challenges of our time,” says Erez Galonska, Co-founder and CEO of Infarm. His brother Guy Galonska is also a founder: “At Infarm, we believe there’s a better, healthier way to feed our cities: increasing access to fresh, pure, sustainable produce, grown as close as possible to people,” adds Erez.

The investment will be used to deepen the regional and local penetration of Infarm’s global farming network and complete development of Infarm’s new generation of vertical cloud-connected farms, capable of generating the crop-equivalent of acres of farmland and amplifying the diversity of produce currently available through vertical farming. Vertical farming is also known as hydroponic farming or controlled environment agriculture.

The technology has become developed and well-known over the years thanks to cannabis growers who used this energy-intensive and “stealth” mode of farming to grow cannabis with high concentrations of the active ingredient THC. When it was illegal to grow in Canada, young entrepreneurs were inspired by early blueprints from NASA and farming in space, and found ways to set up a soil-less system in basements and closets. To their surprise they could grow better quality cannabis, faster as inputs such as lighting, humidity and nutrients could be tightly controlled. 

And growing food became the next natural step for people who wanted to grow fresh food year round even though it’s usually not cost effective to grow tomatoes or lettuce this way, unless you do it at scale. 

Hydroponics and variations of it, using just water, a semi-solid coir medium or Styrofoam and/or with fish added, has become the promise for growing food in far-flung locations like Antarctica and food deserts where chocolate bars are available at bodegas, but fresh greens are not. This is according to mothers I have met in Harlem, New York. The hydroponic method is not that complicated at all in theory but in practice it is hard to achieve good results without know-how in chemistry, engineering and biology. 

An integration of advanced engineering, software and farming technology, the Infarm farms will save labour, land, water, energy, and food-miles, while contributing to a more sustainable food system, the company proposes.

Partnering with Aldi, Marks & Spencer, Sobeys

While companies like Farmigo founded in New York (also by an Israeli) wanted to put supermarkets out of business, in the past year Infarm has been working to keep them relevant and formed new partnerships with the world’s largest retailers, including Albert Heijn (Netherlands), Aldi Süd (Germany), COOP/Irma (Denmark), Empire Company Ltd (Sobeys, Safeway, Thrifty Foods – Canada), Kinokuniya (Japan), Kroger (United States), Marks & Spencer (United Kingdom) and Selfridges (United Kingdom).

With operations across 10 countries and 30 cities worldwide, Infarm harvests 500,000+ plants monthly, while using 99.5% less space than soil-based agriculture, some 95% less water, 90% less transport and zero chemical pesticides. Today, 90% of the electricity use throughout the Infarm network is from renewable energy and the company has set a target to reach zero emissions from their production next year.

With the cost of lighting typically very high in hydroponics systems I’d be curious to know how they will do that without buying carbon credits. Consider this Stanford research paper that mentioned the cost of hydroponic lettuce to be about 8KG of carbon compared to 150g if grown conventionally. The research is a few years old and certainly there can be ways to improve energy efficiencies. 

What organic farmers think?

Proponents of organic farming, regenerative agriculture, and permaculture don’t love hydroponics farming because it relies on petroleum-based fertilisers and nutrients as additives, and while there may be no or few bugs in the grow chambers, there is a risk of fungus and bacteria; in nature there is always free natural sun (unless you are in Finland in the winter) and natural interactions between plant, soil; and even among small biota like mycorrhizal fungi which play a role in the uptake of micronutrients to the roots and the overall essence of what we call a plant. There is one school of thought that says the “organic” label can only be applied to soil-based farming. Lawyers are debating the issue now. 

The answer will be somewhere in the middle. Like most things in life the middle way will help us. The dream is many one-acre regenerative farms to feed us healthily and to feed the planet too but meanwhile there is a gap. How do we feed everyone else who can’t afford to buy at Whole Foods?

We need to improve our local supply chain for food. When you live in a country like Israel, Egypt or Jordan with ample sun, growing food inside a supermarket fridge makes no sense, although hydroponics does. See this project in Jordan, funded by the USAID. Or the one that has changed lives in Harlem. 

I had a hydroponics robotics venture (see this article on Bloomberg) and I took it to New York a few years ago and found myself running in circles trying to explain why eating local is good for the planet, it’s good for a circular economy that might one day be about survival. Venture Capitalists laughed at me. They said my technology and vision was a vitamin and not a bandaid –– “a nice to have” but not “a necessary to have”, especially in cities like New York. Then Covid thinking happened.

Here is what investors in Infarm say now (and kudos to the team who worked hard building physical farms and maintaining the pilots):

“We are excited to partner with the Infarm team to accelerate their urban vertical farm vision, ultimately creating a more sustainable food system for a growing population,” says Dharmash Mistry, Partner of LGT Lightstone: “With over $1bn of customer demand, partnerships with 17 of the top 50 global grocers, Infarm is set to revolutionise the market behind a unique ‘demand led’ modular business model.”

Let’s hope. Another Israeli called Benzi Ronen came from Silicon Valley and started a farm-to-table venture in New York and was on top of the world. He had just raised $26 million to grow Farmigo into the Amazon for fresh food and I spoke with him at one point when he warned me to stay in Israel and work there locally for a couple of years before moving stateside. That’s me in the biodome below, growing bok choy for future Martians on my roof in Tel Aviv. I didn’t listen.

I had a venture in robotics to help cannabis farmers (even Mars farmers grow cannabis in space – see this article in Fast Company) and city hydroponic farmers. Farmigo was trying to eliminate supermarkets, by connecting farmers to consumers at drop off points throughout the city. The model was valorous –– who doesn’t want the freshest farm picked veggies every morning? The modern CSA? And it supported local farming, just like what Michael Pollan wants us to do. And to compete with Amazon? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Farmigo raised millions and then the company’s vision to be the Amazon of fresh food could not compete with Amazon. Farmigo changed its business model and now sells software. 

I saw the challenges of the business in supplying fresh food. The mechanics of the machines, the lack of willing labor, software needed, the logistics, the importance of food safety. The fungus, the bacteria. The good bacteria. The bad. The responsibility. The chemicals needed to feed the plants, to keep the systems “clean” and safe. So much is hard to control when you are talking about living things. 

I always said that if hydroponics or farmers that come from Microsoft want to make city farming work the model will look like the cellphone industry: different players supplying various parts like Qualcomm, Verizon, 3M, Broadcom, and Texas Instruments does. Even to make iPhones work. 

Can and will Infarm do it all? 

“We see a massive demand in the market for sustainable, environment-friendly, and healthy food – and Infarm has just the right team in place to make this happen,” says Pasha Romanovski, Co-founding Partner of Hanaco Ventures.

More about Infarm

Founded in Berlin in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and the brothers Erez and Guy Galonska, Infarm is dedicated to creating a future where local super fresh produce is available for everyone. The farms are placed in various locations in the city, like supermarkets, restaurants and distribution centers, so that vegetables grow and are harvested close to the moment of purchase or consumption. People like Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk has been doing this in New York with a project called Square Roots. They train young entrepreneurs to dream up all sorts of business models inside the shipping container farms built by Freight Farms. 

Some in the VC world I have talked with question the viability of the business model of these containers. While it’s a nice idea it’s hard to get the return on the upfront investment. 

But when it comes to specialty products and “farms” you can find the Infarm service model in all sorts of permutations in the United States. I got to spend some ample time in meetups with a pile of entrepreneurs building an urban farming project in New York. There I met Andrew Carter, now growing mushrooms in a warehouse in Williamsburg. There is also Farm.One which grows papalo, minutina and all the boutique and hipster greens any chef could dream up in the center of New York City. They deliver. 

Lastly and most easily is to try out growing fresh greens at home without the supermarket, or less of the supermarket. I met the founder of Hamama when she was in Israel via MIT helping kids in Israel grow their own food using hydroponics at The Greenhouse. (After I wrote this story in 2008 <— kids from the US were writing me about how to donate their Bar Mitzva money to Noam Geva).

Over at The Greenhouse Camille had her head inside an aeroponics system she’d rigged up last time I saw her. She brought a few of her MIT geek friends over to my house in Jaffa and we talked about hydroponics changing the world. And now she helps people in the easiest way grow microgreens at home. That’s a hyper simplified way to do hydroponics. She was one of the most inspiring people I met in hydroponics and urban farming. 

In fact many in the business are. They are people who want to change the world. Like… Have you met Henry?

Go out and meet someone, start a farm. Grow something. That’s how we change the world.

Now over to Infarm: good luck! 

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Urban farming and gardening is as old as civilization itself. The ancient hanging gardens of Babylon helped inspire the water farming known as hydroponics (see how it’s evolved into artificial intelligence). Historic major cities, such as the Byzantine city of Constantinople, which later became Istanbul, were planting urban gardens to help feed inhabitants during times of famine and warfare.

Istanbul’s historical market gardens, known as bostan, were known for providing fresh garden produce for Turkey’s largest city for hundreds of years. These market gardens were located inside city walls, and the produce grown there helped feed hundreds of thousands of people.

Modern construction and population growth has resulted in most of these gardens being doomed for destruction to make way for planned building projects.

The bostan gardens in the Yedikule quarter have more recently been rented by immigrants and others to provide an income for themselves and their families. Istanbul’s metro population, which now is more than 15 million, is simply running out of space.

“The bostan in Yedikule are one of the first forerunners to what we today term urban farming,” says Aslihan Demirtas, an Istanbul-based architect. The Istanbul municipality wants to remove these garden plots in order to provide room to construct a large 90,000 square meter park. Doing so will destroy the incomes of people who came from rural locations and have no other means of making a living. “If you throw me out onto the street, what am I going to do to make a living,” says a 53-year-old bostan farmer.

Police recently entered some of last garden plot areas and told the people renting them that they only have until the “next harvest” to continue farming there. This will end a farming tradition that goes back more than 1,500 years. The gardens which lay along the ancient city walls, until recently have been a UNESCO protected site.

The approaching end of Istanbul’s bostan urban farming does not mean that urban farming is doomed, however. Inhabitants on other major urban locations, ranging from New York City’s Brooklyn based Gotham Greens to urban agriculture movements in Cairo Egypt, indicate that urban farming projects are alive and well.

Read more on urban farming movements and projects:
Join the urban farming movement
Brooklyn’s Gotham Greens builds world’s larget urban rooftop farm
Hanging gardens of Babylon inspire water farming called hydroponics
Egypt’s urban agriculture movement is growing

Photos of Yedikule garden plots Jennifer Hattam 

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City dwellers are now enjoying the pleasure and personal benefits of growing their own garden produce, which is often very expensive when purchased at local supermarkets and green grocers. Urban farmers who lack experience in growing their own veggies are receiving assistance from urban farming organizations, such as one called Urban Farming, a Michigan based NGO, which is making a big impact on turning American and other urban communities into active participants in the global urban farming food chain.

Urban Farming has helped establish local community farming projects in American urban locations such as Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and St Louis. Besides giving local residents the opportunity to participate in growing their own garden produce, Urban Farming is also helping to bring people together into a stronger sense of working together as a community. Part of the produce grown in these community farming projects is given to local food banks for distribution to needy people.

In water and land scarce parts of the Middle East, urban farming is coming into its own. A good example is taking place in Cario Egypt (photo), where a number of urban farming projects are turning rooftops into blooming urban gardens.

Cairo suffers from a combination of extreme population density, combined with a chronic lack of available vegetable produce. Local urban organizations such as the Egyptian Food Sovereignty Project, has established successful urban farming projects in this city of more than 12 million people.

Another M.E. urban farming example is taking place in the West Bank, where Palestinian refugees are now growing vegetable produce in rooftop gardens in a Bethlehem refugee camp. It all goes to show that successful urban gardening projects are possible virtually anywhere. All it takes is a bit of available space and a willingness to be involved in helping to green the planet.

Read more on urban farming projects:

Chicago’s urban farming produces fresh veggies all year, 24/7

Brooklyn’s Gotham Greens builds world’s largest rooftop urban garden

Sow much good farmer a CNN hero for spreading her seeds at the urban farm

Photo of urban farming in the city by Alternet.org

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Abu Nasser has created a tiny urban farmstead using a hydroponic system. On the roof of his six-story apartment tower he cultivates red and green peppers and mint in large plastic tubs.  His ground level garden boasts aubergines and a variety of green leafy vegetables, which he nurtures using homemade organic pest-control solutions consisting of garlic, pepper, and soap. His soil-less farm is about six years old, and his experiments aim to improve the quality of life in Gaza.

“My plants are now bearing fruit for the first time,” he told Gulf Times, “I am so happy, but I really want to make it even better.”

Almost 2 million people live in the Gaza strip, as the population grows, new housing is taking up land previously used by farms, requiring that alternative means of vegetable growing are urgently needed. To that end, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has supported 219 households with rooftop hydroponic gardens. Under that program, Abu Nasser received about $5,400 USD and training in hydroponic techniques.

“The water in Gaza is not suitable and requires a special treatment,” he told Gulf Times.The plants sit in polystyrene panels, which float in troughs, with roots hanging in water. Abu Nasser adds minerals such as magnesium and calcium to the water, and watches how the plants react. The electricity for the water pumps comes from solar collectors on the roof.

In his day job, Abu Nasser works at the Interior Ministry of Hamas, which governs the Gaza strip. Simultaneously, As an amateur farmer, the 53-year-old now produces about 3,500 kilograms of food. That’s enough to feed 30 people. At first, his lettuce plants did not grow. But six years on, he now says he has given 2,000 heads of lettuce to his friends and family, as well as 200 kilograms of aubergines and 100 kilograms of peppers.

Most importantly, his urban farm is serving as a test lab that is showing others how to make small-scale urban agriculture maximally sustainable.

Learn more in this short film produced by Palestinian freelance filmmaker Yasser Abu Wazna.

Across the planet, and increasingly in urban environments, small-scale farmers are demonstrating a powerful potential in feeding the growing global population in a way that increases both human and planetary health, with favorable economics. Search through the Green Prophet archive using “hydroponics” and “urban farming“, and see if you’re inspired to move beyond a few kitchen herbs in windowsill pots.

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Like Cloud, Big Data and other technological buzzwords, the definition of the Internet of Things (IoT) is often stretched to fit a corporate sales pitch. IoT. But what is it? The internet of things connects ordinary objects to the internet. So now we can Google missing luggage and use an online dating service to match our socks? The reality of IoT is only slightly less imaginative. IoT promises to become the technological bricks and mortar that helps us build smart cities.

Want to build your career in IoT brick by brick? Check the Intellipaat Internet of Things training to get ahead!

Someone peeked inside the refrigerator. A jar tilted against the rubber seal preventing it from re-closing tightly. The door was slightly ajar for only about an hour. But the incandescent refrigerator light bulb had done the damage. Ninety-five percent of its 15 watts went into heating the well-insulated box and spoiling $50 worth of food. It had happened before. It would happen again. So I jury-rigged an alarm that squeals every time the fridge light comes on. The alarm annoyed my family, but a neighbor asked me to make one for him. A photoresistor, a battery and a piezoelectric beeper shouldn’t cost more than $5. But when I researched these 1970s vintage components, I learned that they had evolved into microprocessors and eventually the internet of things.

I found a $5 device capable of measuring temperature and humidity and transmitting the results over WiFi. It could post,“Hey stupid, you left the fridge open again!” on my Facebook wall when it detects a temperature rise.

I showed this to an Iraqi architect who immediately saw how it could be used to improve the curing of pre-stressed concrete– a process that should rely more on science and less on gut instinct and luck. What else can be done with this internet of things?

When Ireland squandered too much of most abundant resource (rain) — smart water meters were installed on millions homes. These devices measure water consumption, detect leaks and transmits its findings via a smart-meter network to a monitoring truck which passes this information to the billing department. My electricity meter does the same thing.

Worldwide the growth of this technology is approaching the frantic pace of PCs, smart phones and the internet itself.  IoT is already implemented in some cars to put drivers in touch with mechanics and tow companies in the event of a break-down or crash. Cars can also notify each other of road hazards and traffic congestion.

SamTech of U.A.E. uses IoT to track buses, taxis and other vehicles. GreenQ of Israel uses IoT to track garbage.  Silicon Oasis is installing IoT for smart streetlights in Dubai. flux is using it to listen to the health of plants. Smart thermostats like Nest can adjust the temperature of your home when it detects that your smartphone (and presumably you) are nearing the house. And last but not least, IoT is being used for refrigerators. Refrigerators can send a recommended grocery list based on what my family has used and at what rate and remind them when they are eating too much unhealthy food. It can even show its contents via a video display so there is no longer a need to open the door and peer inside and risk leaving the door open.

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Hydroponics and new, high-tech urban agricultural techniques are now growing fresh food in the middle of Manhattan and other large metropolitan centers globally. People are catching onto the taste and business opportunities of urban agriculture: find it growing in Middle Eastern cities such as Cairo, Egypt too!

Urban farming in midwestern American cities like Chicago has had its limitations due to adverse winter weather conditions at least 9 months a year. New indoor farming techniques use vertical farming, special indoor LED lighting and hydroponic systems that pump soybean and kelp-infused water through a temperature and humidity-controlled system, nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

This unique hydroponic farming system is at Bedford Park, about 15 miles (25 km) southwest of Chicago. The Bedford Park project, being carried out by a company known as Farmed Here is housed in a 90,000 square foot warehouse. The project produces a number of green vegetables and herbs; including basil, baby greens, broccoli, and kale.

Farmed Here is just one of more than 821 agricultural projects found under the Chicago Urban Center Agriculture Mapping Project  that includes anything from small private urban projects to multi-acre urban agricultural farms.

Farmed Here’s CEO Nate Laurel, a venture capital investor in his own right, put $13 million into the project that has a combined investment of more than $50 million USD. He says that this investment is worthwhile, considering the demand for fresh vegetable produce in the Chicago metro area alone.

“The greens market for Chicago alone is $400 million dollars,” he says. “Given the market is so big, it’s so top of mind for people to know where their food came from and how it was grown”, he adds.

Urban faming projects have also gone big-time by a rival company, Brooklyn based Gotham Greens, which opened a 75,000 sq. ft. rooftop farm in Chicago’s Pullman Park quarter in November 2015. In contrast to the LED lighting used by Farmed Here, the Gotham Greens project also uses natural sunlight, that is absorbed through a translucent roof. This idea is more in line with the traditional greenhouse lighting idea.

Dallas, Texas is also getting into the urban farming business: it has opened the office for Flux Farm, Inc., a company (founded and co-owned by Green Prophet’s Karin Kloosterman) to bring space-age artificial intelligence to predict and optimize the growth of plants in controlled environment growing. This company aims to connect urban farms everywhere for data, community and eventually selling produce grown. The company is piloting its technology at an urban indoor hydroponics park in Massachusetts.

The idea of urban farming has also been promoted by Michelle Obama, wife of US President Barack Obama, and who also hails from Chicago. The First Lady launched an urban gardening project in a section of the White House grounds in the Spring of 2012. Her urban gardening project has given her the title of First Lady of Urban Gardens.

More articles on urban agriculture projects:

Grow fresh food in the middle of Manhattan? Meet Henry
Brooklyn’s Gotham Greens builds world’s largest rooftop urban farm
Egypt’s urban agriculture movement is growing!

Photo of Farmed Here urban agriculture project by Fast CoExist; Photo of Michelle Obama in urban garden by NPR.Org

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Now a young architect throws out a nationwide challenge, posting on his website, “Amman, it’s time to talk!”

Hanna Salameh, founder of the design firm that bears his name, has collaborated with architects on his staff to propose a radical solution to these faulty towers.  Renaming Jordan Towers as Jordan Gate Park, they envision a facility that returns a sense of place and scale to its neighborhood while serving as a fully visible beacon to renewable energy and the industry’s best practices in green design. If realized, it would transform them into the most sustainable development in the kingdom.

Green Prophet met up with Salameh to get the full story.

Green Prophet: Congratulations!  You’ve been the man of the moment on social media and radio; clearly you’ve touched on a something many locals are passionate about.

Hanna Salameh: Thanks, the response is overwhelming. We are getting comments on our Facebook page, company website, and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

GP: What’s the story of the site?

HS:  The towers were built on what used to be a public park that was created on lands donated to the city for that purpose. It’s not clear how the site was made available for private development. The park was surrounded by a dense residential neighborhood and was very popular. It had a large emotional legacy to those who grew up in that part of Amman.

The Jordan Gate project was riddled with problems. The site cannot support the added car traffic that the planned offices and commercial spaces would generate. Servicing its enormous water and sewage demands would be problematic too.

GP: What’s your story?

HS: I grew up in Jordan, and studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal. I returned home and in 2012 I started my company in Amman, Hanna Salameh Design. “Green” is in my blood.  I grew up surrounded by examples of sensible, sustainable design.

When I was a kid, my grandfather would take me with him to visit the many ancient castles in Jordan. I was always amazed how the interiors were cool, in sharp contrast to the intense heat and sunshine outside. He taught me about natural air conditioning, and skillful use of shade. I became passionate about smart passive design, using materials to decrease dependence on mechanical heating and cooling. My company is known for green design, our buildings use 50-70 percent less energy than those built according to standard practices.

GP: Regulations related to planning, design and construction in Jordan seem a bit lax. Building codes don’t seem to adopt international best practices, with many buildings under-insulated, with far too much exterior glass for the climate. There’s little evidence of robust planning around the impacts of new construction on traffic, parking, emergency services.  Do you think stronger, centralized codes would make sure developments were of better quality?

HS: Rigorous planning and clear codes of course would help. But my focus is on raising public awareness. There’s a lack of education about how our buildings could be better, without driving up costs or adding complication. A big part of the Jordan Gate Park project is about showing people how a large project can bring real benefits to its community.  This can generate renewable energy, provide needed public areas for people to relax and interact, it can even supply a steady, organic food supply – all of this open to the public to explore and learn about, and maybe even merge into their own homes.

GP: What motivated you to take on this project?

HS: As a Amman-based architecture firm, we decided to suggest a radical solution that could turn this potential disaster into a positive project that contributes to the sustainability of our country. Jordan has big energy and water problems. We can use these towers to fix part of these problems.

GP: What’s your approach?

HS: We start by removing most of the glass that now wraps the buildings – about 25,000 panels that we’ll re-purpose for other uses on and off site. We’ll sheath the southern facades with photovoltaic (PV) panels – we estimate using 1,500 PV panels, the equivalent of placing eight panels on every house in the surrounding 800 m2 neighborhood.

The towers have 180 m tall shafts for elevators and services. We will open several of these shafts to act as wind towers, siphoning hot air from ground level up through the roof, creating strong air currents in the process, which can be harvested by wind turbines to generate even more electricity.

HS:  But the most important thing we want to do is start urban farming, and turn these towers into vertical farms right in the middle of the city. Each floor is a potential farm with an area of 2,500 m2. Farmers can cultivate popular crops such as cucumbers and tomatoes that grow in natural sunlight, and introduce more exotic varieties in special-purpose controlled environments, enclosed in glass and illuminated by low-consumption LED lights.

The towers offer a total planting area of 200,000 m2, equivalent to transforming the entire street level community into a center-city farm!

HS: Another important aspect of our design is turning the site back into a public park, and help make these skyscrapers relate to human scale. We’ll open up the roof of the first-level basement to admit sunlight and connect it to the park above. We’ll re-purpose about 10,000 of the glass wall panels into stalls for a new farmers’ market. Tower farmers can sell their fresh produce directly to consumers, cutting out the middleman, shipping costs, and harmful CO2 emissions.

HS: As for the rest of those glass panels?  We’ll build 1,900 bus stops across Amman and the kingdom. They can be signed in interesting ways to promote tips of energy and water saving to create further awareness.

HS: There is a lot more we can do with these towers. Like creating a viewing deck on the top floor to enjoy the beautiful views of Amman. And a tower-top restaurant that serves food cooked from the delicious organic products grown in the towers. We want to create a green gym with sports equipment that generates electricity.

There’s so much more potential – we could add extreme entertainment such as bungee jumping off the towers, zip-lining between them, installing hi-tech roller coasters – you can see more about this in the video we created (below). And of course we’ll have an educational part  to explain how the project works and educated the public further about green design and energy and water saving.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/5FA-OMYiIHQ[/youtube]

HS: So as you can see, we are hitting about 15 birds with one stone. Most importantly, we are protecting our city from a big problem and transforming these two towers into a positive project that generates power, produces food and gives us back our park.

We believe that the cost of implementing these ideas is less than finishing the original planned project. And the new functions will generate significant income for the tower owners, returning first investment and creating new revenue streams from renewable energy generation and food production.

GP: Any parting words for us?

HS: Let’s turn these towers into a landmark that represents progress and sustainability. Their presence will raise awareness on issues of energy and water, and through them we can prove to the world that we can learn from our mistakes and turn them into big positives for our city and country. Help us make this vision a reality. Connect with us through our website or Facebook or Twitter using the #JordanGatePark.

Images from the project YouTube video

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From vertical farming to rooftop gardening, here are 7 of the best agricultural companies and projects put in practice in the Middle East.

There’s no getting around it: the world is becoming a much less secure place in which to live. Economies are tanking, geo-political systems are in turmoil, weather events such as wintertime drought are becoming more frequent and serious, and already dangerous planetary warming is being exacerbated by phenomenon such as giant plumes of gurgling methane discovered in the great white north.

All of these factors have an impact on the ability of ordinary people to find healthy food at decent prices.

So we have gathered a few big ideas that are being harnessed in the Middle East region to address these challenges and increase our resilience amidst one of the most uncertain times that humanity has faced.

Read on for the not-to-miss list.

1. Eddy 

Eddy (see website here) is a low-cost device packed with powerful sensors that makes it easy for anyone, anywhere to access the benefits of hyper-local food. It is built with artificial intelligence to listen to plants and understand exactly what they need when they are growing in your spare bedroom or rooftop garden or farm. Pick up Eddy, add it to your garden, add seed types, nutrient types, connect with people nearby and Eddy will guide you through to perfection.

The company is in the hot area of urban agriculture and like Aerofarms (#2 on our list) Eddy can be used in any sized hydroponic garden or vertical farm. It sits in the water reservoir, and by connecting you to community and data, you are able to grow any kind of food in the world. Using hydroponics. The company is offering a 50% discount to the first 1000 people who sign up to order the product when it ships in the coming months. Sign up here to secure your product and discount. Hydroponics is great for the Middle East, as it’s up to 90% water efficient.

2. AeroFarms Vertical Farming

Green Prophet writer Susan Kraemer wrote that AeroFarms could herald one of the most important developments in food harvesting since humans switched from hunting and gathering to farming. Based in New Jersey, Aeroponics using a method of hydroponics to grow hyper-local food.

These clever stacked farms that can be used virtually anywhere – including inside buildings in the heart of any city – use aeroponic farming technology instead of soil and sunshine to grow food. Saudi Arabia has already embraced the technology that specifically addresses estimates that 80% of the world’s burgeoning population will be living in cities by 2050.

Since this company has come online, a hot new food tech startup flux, has taken hydroponics one step further, by adding a layer of artificial intelligence to understand the language of plants.

3. Yemenite Rainwater Harvesting

It’s not tech by today’s standards, but it’s traditional innovation. Food grows where water flows, so harvesting rainwater in nearly dry cities such as Sana’a in Yemen is absolutely pivotal to any kind of agricultural success.

Which is why Sabrina Faber’s award-winning rainwater capture system is so clever. Adding to its ingenuity is its sheer simplicity: the rainwater harvesting system will be incorporated into rooftops and is modelled after traditional capture designs Faber has seen out in Yemen’s countryside.

4. Gaza’s Green Roofs of Herbs and Vegetables

“They” say that necessity is the mother of invention, and this is turning out to be particularly true when it comes to food. Many residents in Gaza have experienced have embraced one of the largest growing urban agricultural solutions. They are building their own hydroponics solutions.

Having no land and stunted access to to food, many people in this politically-charged strip of land are growing cabbage, eggplants, and endochriyya [a plant used for making soup] in the winter, as well as chili, garlic, and onions in summer, and they are doing all of this on their flat rooftops that receive plenty of sunlight. Several rooftop farming initiatives have popped up in Cairo and Beirut as well.

5. Liveinslums Microgardens in Cairo

A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Liveinslums has worked with local architects and designers to help residents in Cairo’s neglected City of the Dead grow microjardins – mini, soilless, and transportable subsistence gardens that also fertilize the sand.

In addition to being incredibly portable, the microjardins are easy to construct.

Liveinslums provide seeds, turf and perlite, which act as a substitute to soil, vitamin solutions that are added to water, and plastic, wood, and other recycled materials out of which these mini gardens are made. Initiatives like this demonstrate that with the right amount of tender loving care, food can be grown anywhere!

6. Feeding Abu Dhabi With Water From Air

Despite having some of the world’s most largest and grandest desalination plants, the Gulf countries are quite possibly the most vulnerable when it comes to water, and they are rising to the challenge with some of the most sophisticated water capture innovations.

With an average humidity level of 61% , the Abu Dhabi Farmers’ Services Center (FSC) has spearheaded G-earth  – a technology that extracts condensation from the air to provide water for Abu Dhabi greenhouses.

7. SEKEM – Egyptian Organic Farm

Organic farming may not be new, but Egypt’s largest is so successful that we can’t ignore its potential to not only save people from food shortages, but also to restore the country’s soil to sustainable levels.

Established by Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish in 1977, SEKEM is an organic farming community that integrates social, economic and environmental development just outside Cairo. Run by Dr. Abouleish’s son Helmy, this incredible enterprise that champions the best in sustainable farming techniques has grown from 70 hectares to several thousand!

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Growing green roofs is now mandatory for new buildings being built in Canada and France. Middle Eastern countries facing dire food and water insecurity know that farming close to home can cut down greenhouse emissions and if farmed hydroponically can drastically cut the water bill –– in some cases by 90%! Puttings its money where American mouths are this super cool company from Brooklyn called Gotham Greens has just built the world’s largest rooftop farm -– in Chicago.

The pioneers behind America’s first commercial urban hydroponic greenhouses are now builders of the world’s largest. Today, Gotham Greens announced their biggest and most ambitious expansion to date with a brand new facility, located in the historic Pullman area on Chicago’s South Side.

Gotham Greens’ fourth greenhouse facility represents a massive expansion for the company, and its first outside of New York. The state of the art, 75,000 sq ft Chicago greenhouse, located on the rooftop of Method Products manufacturing facility, is powered by 100% renewable energy, employs over 50 workers, many from the Pullman community, will produce nearly 10 million annual crops of local, premium-quality, pesticide-free, leafy greens and herbs.

“With more than $1 billion in venture capital invested in the city in 2014, Chicago continues to emerge as the country’s newest hot spot for innovation and growing companies,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

“Gotham Greens’ expansion means even more jobs and investment in the Pullman neighborhood; and through cutting-edge agricultural innovation they will provide fresh, healthy and locally-grown foods to residents across Chicago.”

Gotham Greens’ local produce will be available in select national and local retailers across the Chicagoland area including Whole Foods Market, Peapod, Treasure Island, Sunset Foods, Plum Market, Target, and others.

In addition, the company has partnered on programs with various Chicago institutions including the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Greater Roseland West Pullman Food Network, Pilot Light, Chicago Botanical Garden’s Windy City Harvest and more.

“We’re proud to expand our footprint and bring Gotham Greens’ award-winning local produce into a new market, particularly Chicago, which is not only where I spent my early childhood, but also currently, perhaps, the most exciting city for culinary innovation, green development and urban farming,” said Gotham Greens co-founder and CEO Viraj Puri. “We’re especially proud to bring so many new jobs to the Pullman area, while also helping to make the local food system healthier and more ecologically sustainable.”

Through their unique brand of urban agriculture, now spanning two major cities, Gotham Greens’ expert growers are able to produce the highest quality vegetables all year round—including in the dead of winter. Sophisticated computer control systems continually adjust the greenhouse environment to ensure optimal growing conditions all year round. For Chicagoans, this means premium-quality, hyper-local produce that often hits store shelves and restaurant plates the very same day it’s harvested, 365 days a year.

RELATED: flux offers “Intel inside sensor brain for hydroponics 

“Above all else we are focused on growing the freshest, best tasting produce available,” said Gotham Greens’ Chief Agriculture Officer,Jennifer Nelkin Frymark. “Our commitment to quality and growing excellence is best illustrated by Gotham Greens’ new and long standing relationships with the nation’s best retailers and Michelin rated restaurants committed to providing their customers with the freshest and finest ingredients possible.”

Gotham Greens’ proprietary growing methods yield up to 30 times more crop per acre than field production, enabling the Pullman greenhouse to produce yields equivalent to over 50 acres of conventional field production.

Because Gotham Greens recycles 100% of its irrigation water, it also uses 10 times less water than conventional agriculture (while also eliminating all agricultural runoff – one of the leading causes of global water pollution).By growingly locally, Gotham Greens eliminates the food waste and environmental footprint linked to shipping produce long distances.

Gotham Greens, based in Brooklyn, NY, has over 115 full-time team members and is growing rapidly, with projects under development in cities across the U.S. “We’ve raised over $30 million since launching in 2009,” said Gotham Greens co-founder and CFO, Eric Haley. “We now have four operational greenhouse facilities across two cities totaling 170,000 sq ft. This makes us the largest and most commercially successful urban agriculture company in the world.”

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