Water conservation in Controlled Environment Agriculture

Controlled Environment Agriculture, including indoor and greenhouse production, is a small but high-potential, rapidly growing part of the food system. CEA can play a role to ensure food security and supply chain resilience. And also meet consumer demands around transparency, traceability, and sustainability while supplying nutritious, high-quality products that taste good. CEA requires a fraction of the water of other types of production, often up to 90-95% less. In this episode we talk to Dr. Alexa Lamm about water conservation technology in CEA and then two giants in CEA: AppHarvest and Plenty about how they manage their water use.

Speakers

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Associate Professor at Univ of Georgia
Department of Ag Leadership and Communication

Jackie Roberts

Chief Sustainability Officer
AppHarvest

Dr. Sarah Federman

Research Scientists
Plenty

Listen

Vonnie Estes

Welcome to PMA Takes On Tech, the podcast that explores the problems, solutions, people and ideas that are shaping the future of the produce industry. I'm your host Vonnie Estes, vice president of technology for the Produce Marketing Association, and I have spent years in the Ag tech sector. So I can attest, it's hard to navigate this ever changing world and developing and adopting new solutions to industry problems. Thanks for joining us and for allowing us to serve as your guide to the new world of produce and technology. My goal of the podcast is to outline a problem in the produce industry and then discuss several possible solutions that can be deployed today.

Vonnie Estes

This series of PMA Takes On Tech is made possible in part by the support of our sponsor TR Turoni. For more than 35 years, TR Turoni has supported fruit growing and horticulture companies with a complete range of scientific instruments, including specialized harvest and quality control instruments to monitor fruit ripening, sugar concentration, temperature and firmness. You can learn more about their complete range of measurement and control instruments at trterroni.com. That's T-R-T-U-R-O-N-I.com.

Vonnie Estes

Welcome to the first episode of 2021. It's been a rough start after a rough year, but we are here to learn about some exciting developments and reasons for optimism. We will be talking about the ability to grow part of our leafy greens, vegetables and fruits using the fraction of the amount of water normally required and to help build a resilient food system. By now most of us know the benefits of growing indoors, smaller footprint on land and environment, closer to population centers year round growth et cetera. I wanted to focus specifically on water use and indoor systems. What do we know? What do we need to know? To do that I'm speaking to Dr. Alexa Lamm, who will discuss partnerships around developing water technologies, and then to two controlled environment Ag companies actually growing products.

Vonnie Estes

Alexa is an associate professor at the University of Georgia in the department of agriculture, leadership and communication. She specializes in conducting research on how people make decisions individually and collectively. Specifically, she is interested in how targeted science communication efforts and educational initiatives impact the decision making process. Alexa has worked on so many interesting projects. I'm sure I'll have her back again on the show on a different topic. But the topic today is working with both greenhouses and indoor farms on using new technologies around water use. She works at the private public partnership edge communicating the need to scientists and then helping producers engage and adopt new water saving technologies.

Vonnie Estes

As we discussed, I have also spent a good portion of my career working on technology development, and adoption to build a better food system. Even more so today with so many new technologies, we need navigators and communicators to make this happen. Alexa will talk about some of the programs she has worked on. After Alexa, we will talk to two companies who are deploying unique ways of managing water indoors UpHarvest and Plenty. Let's jump into the conversation with Alexa. So please tell us about yourself.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Sure. So I am an associate professor at the University of Georgia focused in science communication and I'm in the college of agriculture and environmental sciences and located in our department of agricultural leadership, education and communication. So all of the science communication research that I conduct is focused on how we communicate most effectively about agricultural and environmental science innovations or best management practices. I do that in terms of connecting scientists with producers to make their work more relevant and applicable to producers so they can adopt new innovations more readily, and I also study consumer acceptance of new scientific innovations in the food system.

Vonnie Estes

That's so important to me, a lot of work that I do and I've done over my career is at that edge of, “okay, we've got this great stuff now how do we get people to accept it and how do we get it adopted?” So it's really great work, it's been fascinating getting to know you and reading about your work and just seeing people working in this intersection because I think if you have the technology and nobody uses it, it's not worth it. So that's great. So in this particular podcast, we're talking about water use, and specifically around indoor Ag and greenhouses. I know you've done a lot of work in the greenhouse area and published a lot on that, and then are also starting to look at indoor Ag. So if you could talk a little bit about your work there and what your thinking is in water.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Sure. So I've had the opportunity to work with some brilliant scientists from around the world who are trying to solve issues around water quality, and water quantity because as the amount of food we need to produce to feed our growing global population requires water. We also need to make sure we're protecting our water resources, and the quality of those resources that go into food production, as well as what's recharged back into the environment. So specifically for the greenhouse and landscape industry, I've had the opportunity to work with teams of researchers that have created all kinds of ways to treat water for recycling purposes, to capture water for water reuse, to ensure that that water doesn't carry pathogens into the system as it is used initially, and then also reused to protect crop quality and uniformity, as well as the disbursement then of that water eventually into the environment to make sure that it's safe for the environment.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So the work that I do alongside with them is, how do we communicate about all these new innovations so that producers want to adopt these technologies. As I talk with food producers, specialty crop producers around the world on a fairly regular basis, every single one of them is an environmentalist, they care so much about the environment, because without a healthy environment, they can't grow their crops, they can't have productive systems. So they want to adopt these new practices, but we have to make them compatible with existing systems, we have to make them easy to implement, we have to create systems that aren't so complex and overwhelming that it's difficult to adopt them.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So it's connecting those scientists and those producers together to create systems that really work in the real world, that's so important to ensuring that all the new science and all the new innovations are adopted and improving our food system.&

Vonnie Estes

So on the technology side, do you end up working with companies or more academics, or a mix of both? Or the technologies that you're involved with where do they come from?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

That's a great question. So both really, my job is to be the connector to get those two groups to talk to each other, to get producers to identify what their needs are, or even to explore new needs that they didn't even think possible to get them to think about what would that ideal system look like for them, and then to share that information with scientists in a way that they can then adapt their research goals to create those new innovations that those growers need, that those producers need to be most effective. So it's really the synergy of the two that comes up with the most innovative, most environmentally, sustainable systems that can help us with our producing high quality food.

Vonnie Estes

One of the things that I've seen across all of Ag tech and this is different working with the soil differently, or precision agriculture or many different technologies is that a lot of the responsibility and risk-taking ends up being on the producer. So the producer is like, "Well, I have to take my time and I have to spend my money, and this may not work." And there's no one kind of helping bridging that. So it's something I've been thinking about a lot is there, there are starting to be people that are kind of navigating that like you are and these connectors and so I really love hearing that. When you're working with producers, how do you kind of tackle the... are they running trials or are they buying systems or how are you alleviating some of the risk part with them?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Sure. I mean, ultimately, this is a business for them. This is their livelihood. This is how they feed their own families and so taking risks in integrating new systems there is always a financial component. So the economics, the return on investment is so important. Of course, just like in every part of life, there are people who are more risk averse and more willing to jump in and try something than others. One of the things that our scientific teams can do is test things first. So they test in platforms. But one of the biggest complaints I hear from producers is that well, yeah, it works in a perfect lab setting but you bring it into my greenhouse where I have 30 different cultivars all next to each other, and I can't control temperature and water applications so precisely, I'm not sure it's going to work for me in that setting.&

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So, one of the things we've been moving towards is, as we work on new scientific innovation is partnering producers with scientists that they can go into real world application in a small portion of their greenhouse and test things in that real setting, in that real environment. That then we can showcase to other producers that have similar systems. So they can see them in action, they can observe what's happening there, whether that be a field day where people visit that facility, or we've been doing more and more with GoPros and video production to create online-

Vonnie Estes

Especially now, right?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Yeah. Right. Online virtual environments where people can be even present and asking questions online as we're walking around in these greenhouses and showcasing that science in the real world. So I think there are opportunities to do that and I think the scientific community is starting to think bigger picture about practical application. So that partnership, that public private partnership is becoming more and more important.

Vonnie Este

Yeah. Great. So you've done work in greenhouses, we were talking about that earlier and you published on a lot of the findings that you've done there and then now your work is going to start to turn and focus more on indoor Ag. Can you tell me a little bit about the types of projects you're envisioning and what are some of the maybe the differences with indoor Ag as compared to greenhouses where you're still using the sun and more of the environment?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. As we're seeing our populations moving more into urban centers, and the realities of food deserts in these urban areas, I think having agriculture be present in urban environments where local food in that connection with our populations here in the United States is more important than ever. But also, the availability of space near urban centers or in urban centers tend to be inside, right? I was visiting Detroit last year with a team of scientists and even the old warehouse is being renovated and turned into food hubs, food centers where people are growing inside. But there are definitely complications with that like

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So moving into hydroponics or finding soilless substrates that work within those systems, that reduce the amount of water that needs to be applied because water availability in urban areas is very different than in rural areas where you can put in a well and pump as much water as you want. In some states, like the one I live here in Georgia, you can pump water out of a well and irrigate your crops pretty readily in a rural area where in an urban setting you have to pay for the water that comes out of the tap, that comes out of the hose.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So the realities of that return on investment, that risk becomes smaller when you're having to pay for water to grow your plants. So when we think about those systems, indoor systems, especially it's a closed system, so we have the ability to apply water and recapture it. I've even seen facilities that have water tanks underground, built into their greenhouse, indoor greenhouse floors that recapture that put it into a tank, filter it and reapply. But there are fertilizers that we apply the plants, that plants can only consume so much of that. So there's still the existence of nitrogen and phosphorus in that water and higher levels that needs to be then distributed and maintained before it can be reapplied as well as pathogens because if we have a pathogen within a plant system, and then that gets into the water, we don't want to reapply that water back on to a new crop system until we're sure that that pathogen is no longer present.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So there's some of those things that have to be addressed as we think about recycling and reusing water time and time again. So those are the things that producers moving into these urban settings, these indoor settings, they're having to think about those soils or soilless substrates that they're using, as well as how they filter how they recycle water, what those actual systems look like. Like the example I used with the tanks, but also how we filter that water and how we do that in natural ways, like using sand filters, or in chemical ways, like using chlorine to clean those systems. So there's a lot of different options and scientists are exploring the best ways to do that. So it's exciting, but it's also there's so much out there to think about and explore.

Vonnie Estes

Later in the podcast we'll talk to Sarah from Plenty. So they have a facility here in south San Francisco, and then they're building their new one in Compton, in LA. So they are full speed ahead on that facility and getting water from I mean, that's about as municipal city urban as you can get right in Compton. So yeah, I think that's really exciting and placing that greenhouse in a place like that, that's going to create really great jobs and it's a food desert and that's going to be a really interesting view of an indoor Ag facility that does all the things that you were talking about, really gets food to people. So that'll be an interesting test case to see how that goes.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

Yeah, I mean, there's so many sociological components to moving these systems to urban areas and utilizing indoor facilities. When you think about the childhood obesity issues in the United States, a lot of that is related to the lack of access to fresh food, it has nothing to do with the fact that kids and even families aren't willing to feed good, high quality food to their kids, it's just that all they have available is a gas station, or the local convenience store and buying a microwave pizza or chips is all that they really have available. So creating these spaces, like the ones you've just described which will provide access in these locations is so important to the future of America and I'm sure other parts of the world as well that are doing similar things. So yeah, there's so much potential.

Vonnie Estes

Do you see in your work any opinions that consumers have? Or, have you looked at consumer opinion around indoor Ag? Or probably greenhouses more acceptable. But is there any hesitancy of consumers about crops that are grown indoors?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So I've done a lot of research on consumer acceptance of all kinds of different innovations in agriculture, agricultural innovations. I'm going to touch on first I've studied people's perceptions of local food, how they define local food is vast and diverse. Many people consider local food that which is grown within their own country. So here in the United States of it's grown in the US, they consider it local, where others consider it within their state and then even some consider it within a certain like mileage of their home. 30 miles, 100 miles when you're thinking about delivery miles and that carbon footprint, right?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So the definition of local food is very different. The majority of Americans when we survey them are willing to pay more for local food. They expect it to be fresher, they expect longer shelf life, all of these things. Now in terms of actually growing local food most Americans really have no perception of what that actually entails. But we have examined consumer acceptance of some of these water treatment techniques, not necessarily in indoor environments, but in greenhouses and water recycling which the public is wildly in favor of any type of environmental sustainability, especially water conservation, which includes water reuse, and as we know water quality and water quantity goes so hand in hand, you have to treat water to reuse it.

Dr. Alexa Lamm

So chlorine is the one that consumers are very skeptical about. Probably because chlorine is something that resonates personally with us all. We swim in it in swimming pools, we smell it on our skin, in our hair. After we get out of that swimming pool, we think of it as a pretty harsh chemical. So that's the one that the consumers would like to eliminate or not think about being on their food. So, yeah.

Vonnie Estes

I think it's interesting and just with COVID, the whole local, people are more interested in local, both to support local and then just worried about the food chains and food security. So it seems to me that people would be really positive about indoor Ag, the only thing I've heard is, and this is more from the growing community, not necessarily consumers is the whole idea around soil, some people think that soil is part of what matters so much. But I think just the accessibility of having leafy greens or tomatoes, or these types of things year round, and going into different areas that we couldn't go into before, I think is really a positive. Well, is there anything, any other points that you want to make about this topic or?

Dr. Alexa Lamm

I just think it's a really exciting space, if we can think about the holistic food system and how we can take everything we've learned, whether it be about soils, or soilless substrates, or water treatment technologies, or water reuse technologies, filtering techniques, and we can integrate them into these indoor systems, we're going to be delivering a food source to communities that never have access before, we're going to be lowering chronic disease, we're going to be lowering dependence on the health system. I mean, these are the long term effects of public support legislative support for agriculture in these environments and that is huge impact.

Vonnie Estes

I love the work Alexa is doing and the impact it has. Next we will speak to Jackie Roberts, chief sustainability officer at UpHarvest and hear about the innovative way UpHarvest is obtaining and using water. After Jackie, will we move right into our conversation with Dr. Sarah Federman, a research scientist at Plenty about that company's use of water. Well, Jackie, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. UpHarvest is in the news everywhere right now and I just know a lot of my listeners and a lot of people that I know, it feels like you guys just exploded onto the scene. Of course, you've been working really hard in the background. This wasn't a company that just started yesterday, but a lot of people are curious about the company and what you're doing. So I really appreciate in the midst of all this explosive growth and your busyness that you're taking the time out to talk with us. So thank you for that.

Jackie Roberts

Sure, happy to be here.

Vonnie Estes

Great. So tell us a little bit about UpHarvest just for people who have maybe just seen, oh, it's Martha Stewart or whatever, just tell us a little bit about the company.

Jackie Roberts

So first, I think it's important to understand that at our heart, we are trying to build a resilient food system for America. So what UpHarvest is doing is we're developing and operating using applied technology in large scale controlled indoor farms. That means that we can produce U.S. grown fresh produce for national growers right here in Kentucky.

Vonnie Estes

That's great. I know from listening to Jonathan that being based in Kentucky is really important to him with the jobs and bringing that industry into the state and that's really exciting as well.

Jackie Roberts

I think it's also got great assets it's bringing to us, one of which is a great workforce, and the other is the natural resources that are here, particularly water, which I know we're going to talk a bit more about.

Vonnie Estes

Just so people know, what are the first crops or the first crops that you think that you'll commercialize or that you'll be sold under from UpHarvest?

Jackie Roberts

The first crops, we're going to be producing our tomatoes, and right now they're being produced in our Morehead facility, which is obviously in Morehead, Kentucky. We have 30 acres of that 60 acres already up and running and we will be about to start our first harvest. So stay tuned, I think consumers will start seeing us in grocery stores hopefully very soon.

Vonnie Estes

That's so exciting. So as you mentioned, what I wanted to talk to you about and what we're covering in this podcast is some unique ways of managing water and this has been for indoor Ag and greenhouse and different ways of growing, it's different than outside. Water is an issue for everyone but it's an issue for indoor because of some of the places where you're located that you may not have access to the same kind of Ag water type of rights. So from what I've talked to you all and read on your website, you guys have some really unique ways of managing water. So can you tell us about that?

Jackie Roberts

Sure, I think at the heart of sustainability is really placing your business in a region where the available resources are really a good fit, and I think looking at the opportunity for indoor controlled Ag water is one of those key resources. The ability to be located in a water rich region like Kentucky enables us to be what we as far as we know, we're the first large scale facility to be run entirely on rainwater. So that 100% rainwater means that we are using both our roof as a capture system and a large retention pond. Most of the rainwater is actually captured on the roof but some obviously also is going into the retention pond, and then the rainwater is piped from the roof into the retention pond so that we have a ready and available source of water to bring back into the greenhouse and bring to the plants in a very measured control system so there's no waste of water but also it's really a free resource for us.

Vonnie Estes

That's so exciting. I would think a lot of municipal water systems that people have to tap into have all sorts of additives that may cause some problems. So you just completely don't have to deal with those types of things.

Jackie Roberts:

Yeah. I mean, right now if you want to grow something whether you're at home or a big commercial facility you actually, you either have to use wells or you've got to tap into city water or do your own cistern or retention pond. Two of the three of those, sometimes you don't quite know what you're getting with particularly the city water. So you're right I mean, one of the ways in which we've really been able to bring technology to bear is lots of data and sensors and measurement which in today's day and age is very cheap to do.

Jackie Roberts

So we can get constant data on the quality of our water, obviously we filter it before we bring it into our pumping system to get to the plants but in a fairly standard way using sand and UV, we don't have to do any chemical treatment of the water and that's the real benefit, both it's good for the business we don't have to again spend money treating water with additional chemicals, but also it gives us the ability to really know exactly what we are bringing into our plants and then how to add the nutrients that they need so that we produce a really stellar product.

Vonnie Estes

That's great because it's such an important resource and I live in here in California, we talk about water and shortage of water a lot, so that you guys just get to use a resource that's already there is pretty amazing. I guess in Kentucky I mean it's pretty consistent, right? You're not going to have big drought years I mean, it's going to be pretty consistent.

Jackie Roberts

It does and in fact with climate change water patterns are changing and we watch that and Kentucky is actually becoming more water rich. Other areas are becoming less water rich. But regardless, even with today's water availability, we know droughts really aren't part of the climate in Kentucky. But we do know our retention pond would enable us to withstand three months of a drought if it did happen to happen. But, I think that one of the things we've seen that the US Department of Agriculture they have their Economic Research Service, I'm sure you're familiar with it has estimated that climate change is going to increase water scarcity from 20%, to more than 50% of different major agricultural areas in the central and southern mountain Pacific plains region by 2060.

Jackie Roberts

Now, we've got time, but that's a big shift into understanding where regions of water scarcity are emerging, and where regions are that are getting to continue to have sufficient water. We're very confident that we are in Appalachia in a region that is going to continue to have good strong supplies of water and that is one of the keys to our ability to produce a very cost effective high quality set of produce starting with tomatoes.

Vonnie Estes

Yeah. Great. Well, thanks. That's really helpful. So as we close up, can you just give my listeners some thoughts on what 2021 looks like for UpHarvest?

Jackie Roberts

Sure, as I said at the beginning, we're about to start the first harvest. Stay tuned. We think consumers will start to see us very soon in grocery stores, we're very excited about that. We were excited about what's coming off the lines, we've had a chance to taste test it, it's delicious. We also have two sites that we've already announced that are underway under construction in Berea and Richmond which will be bringing in more products, and we actually have announced that by 2025 we hope we're going to have nine additional sites and we've got our eyes on that.

Jackie Roberts

So we really do want to be a supplier that's very climate resilient, very stable and also what's great about our system is we can produce tomatoes and other vegetables in the winter months. So we hope that this will help people think about nutrition and bringing more vegetables into their diet 12 months of the year, not just when summer garden blooms, which is always a great time. I love these first tomatoes of the summer but it's important that we're eating vegetables year round and I think that what we're able to do in terms of delivering really high quality vegetables that tastes good is important for families nutrition.

Vonnie Estes

Now we're speaking with Sarah Federman, a research scientist at Plenty. Sarah and I actually met at the Atlanta conference in 2018, where I was giving a keynote on urban agriculture's role in the smart city. Sarah has a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale, and when we met she was an AAAS Science and Technology Policy fellow with USDA focusing in part on indoor Ag. For those of you not in the know AAAS stands for the Association for the Advancement of Science. We had a great conversation and I was impressed by her breadth and depth of knowledge. At that time, I was doing some work for Plenty, and I ended up asking her to help me on a project, then she got a job there, which was great. Sarah is amazing and I'm so happy to have her on the podcast.

Vonnie Estes

This is also a reminder of how great in person events are for making contacts. So I'm really looking forward and we can all get back to meeting people serendipitously at conferences. So Sarah, most people listening to this podcast have heard about Plenty, but why don't you start telling us just a little bit about the company?

Dr. Sarah Federman

Oh, Vonnie, first, thank you so much for that introduction. That was so, so kind of you and meeting at that conference was so serendipitous and wonderful because I feel like it really changed my life. I live in California now and I work for Plenty, because I met you, really so thank you.

Vonnie Estes

Great.

Dr. Sarah Federman

So sorry, Plenty. So, Plenty is an indoor vertical farm. We grow pesticide free leafy greens in a completely controlled indoor environment. Because we grow in a controlled indoor environment, our farm is what I like to call climate agnostic or protected from outside elements. This means that we can grow year round regardless of outside weather conditions and season. So this growing strategy really allows us to tailor an optimal environment for our plants, and allows them to reach kind of peak flavor and nutrients. When I say controlled, I don't just mean in terms of light and other environmental parameters. We've also automated a large portion of our production process and our goal is at the first person to touch our greens is the consumer who's opening a package in their kitchen.

Dr. Sarah Federman

On a personal level, though, what really drew me to indoor agriculture and Plenty in particular, is its very real potential to provide solutions to challenges facing our food, energy and water systems. So these include the ability to provide reliable food supplies in an increasingly unpredictable climate especially an increasingly unpredictable climate with decreasing land availability. So we're losing an estimated three acres of farmland every minute to development, and all this is coupled with a vulnerable supply chain. This is something that we've all experienced firsthand during our current COVID crisis. So I think it's something that we're all very aware of right now.

Dr. Sarah Federman

Finally, we're experiencing increased water scarcity all on the face of increasing populations and increasing food demand. So I think that indoor farming is one industry that can provide, because can speak to a lot of these challenges that we're facing and I'm really excited to be a part of it.

Vonnie Estes

Great, thanks. Can you tell us a little bit about your role? I know like any startup, I think you've probably done a lot of different things. But what are some of the things that you focus on personally?

Dr. Sarah Federman

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a research scientist, first and foremost. I started here at Plenty with a goal of helping to develop food security products as you might have guessed from my spiel about my personal draw to indoor Ag. I recently transitioned though to a focus on sustainable agriculture, and how we can be more efficient with our resources to really drill down into our environment, sustainability and governance goals. I'm also kind of using my background in ecology and evolutionary biology, to think about how we can bring an ecological perspective to our statistical process control and production.

Vonnie Estes

Great. So one of the big benefits that you mentioned, when you were talking about it with indoor Ag is water savings. Can you tell me a little bit about how much water you use or how much you save and how that's possible? What are the things that are in place that allow you to use so much less water?

Dr. Sarah Federman

So saving water and land is one of the big benefits of indoor vertical farms, we can build a farm without cutting down a single tree by recycling urban infrastructures, and we use a fraction of the water required to grow in the field. Our new farm in LA we're estimating that it's going to save over a million gallons of water per week compared to similar crops grown outdoors.

Vonnie Estes

Wow.

Dr. Sarah Federman

Super exciting. Just to kind of really emphasize the water scarcity issues that we're facing, we're extracting groundwater at breathtakingly unsustainable rates. So right now, it's estimated that in the US 80% to 90% of all ground and surface water usage is for traditional field agriculture, and with climate change, we're projected to increase water scarcity through factors such as increased aridity and decreased snow packs. So without intervention and innovation to our farming system, we're really risking an American and global food and water crisis.

Dr. Sarah Federman

So I think it's really important to think about how we can be continuing to provide high quality, nutritious food to our rising populations while protecting the environment. At Plenty, what's really exciting is that with our platforms, we're aiming to provide high quality, nutritious produce while conserving water resources and grow at scale in traditionally water stress areas such as LA. So I'm super excited that our next farm is going to be in Compton because we can really kind of prove out these roles.

Vonnie Estes

So how do you in Compton and in south San Francisco, how do you get the water because it's not like typical Ag water that you would get in agricultural land? Where does it come from and are there any issues with quality of water?

Dr. Sarah Federman

Yeah. No, thanks for asking. So just two levels that again in the field most water is lost to evapotranspiration, which is the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from the soil and by the oxidation of water from the stomata of leaves or transpiration. Because of this and agricultural runoff lost during transit, about half of the water that's used and field irrigation can be reused. This is part of why it takes so much water to grow outdoors. In our control growing system, at Plenty we're able to capture transpiration is condensate, and we incorporate it into our recirculate. So this is part of our water saving strategy.

Dr. Sarah Federman

In terms of where we're sourcing our water from, it's coming from municipal water supplies. So we're really trying to integrate our growing strategy into municipal structures and frameworks and kind of like re-evaluate what agriculture is and how it can be incorporated into urban communities.

Vonnie Estes

Yeah, I know in talking to some other people about the Compton facility, I mean, the number of jobs and just having kind of that bright light in that community is going to be really great too.

Dr. Sarah Federman

Super excited. This is a total separate conversation but part of our environment, sustainability and governance program really involves community involvement and engagement and I'm happy to speak about that in another conversation.

Vonnie Estes

I'd love to do a podcast on that. So just my last question in finishing up, what will we see from Plenty in 2021? What are some of the plans and you talked about Compton a little bit and what's kind of the timing of that?

Dr. Sarah Federman

Sure. Yeah. So as you were alluding to the biggest change that we're going to see in 2021 at Plenty is that we're opening our new farm in Compton, California. This is going to be the world's first high output indoor vertical farm. Our plan is to supply hundreds of grocery stores from a single farm the size of a big box retailer store. So you might also see some new types of leafy greens this year, we haven't decided anything definitively. We've tested thousands of crops so far. So really, right now, it's about kind of picking the ones that consumers want and that will thrive in our farm.

Dr. Sarah Federman

We've also started R&D on some of Driscoll’s variety strawberries, and you've probably seen our joint development announcement last quarter. So this is already in progress, very exciting. I've tasted some they are delicious. Strawberries have a longer growth cycle and we have to figure out which ones exactly work best in our system. So unfortunately, you can't expect to be shopping for those in your local store anytime soon, but very excited to continue the R&D process.

Vonnie Estes

Right. Well, speaking of shopping in your local store, there's a part during the pandemic where we were trying to only go to the grocery store every two weeks just like everybody else and I was so happy that I lived in the area where I could buy plenty greens, because we would buy six boxes at a time. I had like six boxes in my refrigerator and I took a picture of it and sent it to your CEO and I was like, "I'm supporting the company." But by the end of like the second week I'd opened the box up and it was still fresh, was amazing.

Vonnie Estes

As controlled environment agriculture attracts more investment, over a billion dollars in investments in 2019 and 2020 alone, we are seeing what they can bring to create a healthier world. CEA is not going to replace outdoor agriculture but I'm hoping it makes the pie bigger in part by growing product closer to food deserts and producing year round. As Alexa said, consumers are wildly supportive of water conservation and locally grown produce, CEA can help deliver on that need.

Vonnie Estes

That's it for this episode of PMA Takes On Tech. Thanks for allowing us to serve as your guide to the new world of produce and technology. Be sure to check out all our episodes at pma.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe and I would love to get any comments or suggestions of what you might want me to take on, for now stay safe, eat your fruits and vegetables and we will see you next time.

IFPA Takes on Tech