AsiaDHRRA Online » Urban Farming

Farmbots to the farms!

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:19:42 +0000

Robots for TechTuesday! Bots in the farms is pretty interesting in itself coz, well, they’re robots. Apparently commercial farmers are enamored with robots because they help address the farmers’ perennial problem of labor costs and labor availability. But you have to wonder though the sense of this as world population continues to increase which means an increase also in human labor pool- do we really need robots to work the farms when there’s so much human labor available?

When it comes to farm robots, fruit gets all the attention. But it looks like trees and shrubs could win the prize for first significant agricultural market for small mobile robots.

Massachusetts startup Harvest Automation is beta testing a small mobile robot that it’s pitching to nurseries as the solution to their most pressing problem: a volatile labor market.

Continue reading the farmbots increasing presence in agriculture in Wired Mag…

Organic veggie farming in shipping containers

admin — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:20:54 +0000

Here’s a new twist on urban farming -hydroponics basically. An article in FastCo describes a rising business venture that grows organic vegetables in shipping containers using hydroponic farming technology. Awesome!!!

Liotta decided to use recycled shipping containers as “grow pods,” which are outfitted with organic hydroponic nutrient solutions; computer-controlled environmental systems to regulate temperature, humidity, pH levels, and CO2; and lights that emit specific spectrums at different points in the day. The system provides the exact amount of water, lights, and nutrients that a crop requires–so there is no wasted energy (though the pods are still hooked up to the power grid). In a 320 square foot area, PodPonics can produce an acre’s worth of produce. The pods can be stacked on top of each other for more efficient use of space.

continue reading Localize It: PodPonics Grows High-Tech Organic Produce In Shipping Containers here….

Philippine City offers tax breaks for green roofs

admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:58:09 +0000

EcoSunday shares this news bit from BusinessWorld about a new law enacted by the city council of Quezon City, Phlippines “requiring private and government-owned buildings to reserve part of their rooftops for “greening.”

New commercial/residential buildings, under the Green Roof Ordinance (Ordinance 1940) signed into law by Mayor Feliciano R. Belmonte, Jr. last September 10, should devote at least 30% of their roof area for plants and trees.

The ordinance has provided an incentive: “No real property tax shall be assessed against the value of the floor area dedicated to the plants and trees. This exemption shall be available for ten years starting from the initial assessment.”
Continue reading about tax perks for green roofs in Quezon City, Philippines….

Chickens in the city

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:34:23 +0000

Well, hens actually. Roosters are not welcome because of their crowing and they don’t lay eggs and don’t have good meat hehe. Farmfriday brings this interesting article from MSNBC about raising chickens in the city. While this may seem novel in modern western cities, this may not be so in most asian cities. Still its an interesting study on urbanization and how people are adjusting to meet the growing demand for “real food”. Bird Flu fears aside, read on..

PORTLAND, Ore. – North Williams Avenue is a street with a soundtrack like most any other in the neighborhoods of Portland. There’s the swishing of bikes, the rustling of leaves, the whirring of motors.

But then there’s something else under those familiar notes: A tiny warble of clucks coming from a chicken coop set in a front yard.

Newspapers across the country have been splashing urban and suburban chicken-keeping across their front pages. It’s the latest thing, they say. But in Portland, it’s old hat. For the past few years, chicken-keeping has found its place here.

continue reading about urban chicken raising….

Farms on the rooftops

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:58:35 +0000

Here’s an interesting bit we stumbled upon on MSNBC about urban farming in New York City, USA. As the worldwide trend towards urbanization continues to roll on, the prospects of urban farming becomes more and more evident, if not, a practical necessity. I like this quote from the rooftop farmer “Food comes from not only a plant but a place,” Novak explains. “The food system in America is about packaging and I’m interested in food that comes from the source with no packaging, where its value is its face value. We’ve lost the sense that good nutritious food doesn’t have to come in a box. And the more we connect to our food the more likely we are to become true environmentalists. We’ll understand that food that’s healthy for our bodies is also protecting our watershed and our air.”

FarmFriday encourages you to continue reading about rooftop farms in New York, USA by clicking here…

Learn more from the folks who’s making headway in rooftop farming at http://rooftopfarms.org/