Investing in indoor farming and vertical farms

Human perception is so flawed.

Thank you for bringing this up

We effectively eat insects of the sea, why not of land?

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Because theyā€™re icky!

But in all seriousness I get put off by texture and sliminess. But Iā€™d eat a tasty insect burger so long as it didnā€™t contain allergens.

I believe insects fall under vegan friendly?

Insects are most definitely in the animal kingdom and are therefore not vegan. However, many people are on a vegan diet for environmental reasons. Since insect products are environmentally friendly (in many cases comparable to vegetables) and offer a good source of protein, some vegans today would be willing to add them to their plate.

There was an article on a related note in the Guardian yesterday: The Guardian - Are oysters vegan?

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I thought one of the main things was around the whole sentient feels pain thing which was why plants were allowed but animals werenā€™t. Since insects are essentially drones with no emotions I assumed theyā€™d be on the table as an option at least, just not practiced becuse people donā€™t like eating insects.

Insects have advanced nervous systems that share much with those found in their mammalian relatives. Insects (and other arthropods) can feel pain and even take pre-emptive actions to avoid injury. Here is just one example of insect (in this case fruit-fly) pain: TrpA1 Regulates Thermal Nociception in Drosophila Here, the insect is actually being used as a model to learn more about human pain (the TRPA1 receptor is very similar in fruit-flies and humans).

On a more philosophical note, plants also respond actively to negative stimuli in order to minimise the effect of those stimuli. To assign the term pain to that phenomenon is valid in some regards in my opinion, although that is not common practice.

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They feel pain, thatā€™s not the same as how we feel pain. We have an emotional response, they donā€™t. Pain is just a mechanism for them so it wouldnā€™t be good to put how we perceive pain onto insects, itā€™s just not the same on that emotional side. Unless veganism isnā€™t about sentience. But it seems to keep changing to make people happy :sweat_smile: nothing wrong with that I guess.

Found just the right recipe book for @Freetrade_Team

Itā€™s rated 5/5 so it must be good :bug::hamburger::+1:.

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Itā€™s live now. From what I can work out, it seems like a bespoke B2B play? Thereā€™s not much else you can find out about them and their deck hardly fleshes out the details either. Seems like theyā€™re using the money mainly to move from their POC farm. Y1 Revenue is microscopic and they havenā€™t released any other figures whatsoever. Even at this valuation it seems like a stretch.

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They are B2B, growing to order. Sounds like a fair amount of agri-tech to manage and track the journey of growing to delivery. They say they are at capacity and have a backlog of 10 customers. The valuation feels high for the current stage, but thatā€™s the story of every crowdfunding pitch right now. Major scale will be needed for something like this to work, at which point finding suitable spaces in major cities to grow the produce might be a challenge. The founder is actively engaging with the community on the pitch which is always a good sign, normally you can tell a lot from how founders reply.

Would be interesting to see what other people think.

Disclaimer - Remember to do your own research, or seek professional advice as you can lose the whole investment.

I think indoor/vertical farming is very interesting and has lots of potential to feed people for cheaper. Itā€™s only leafy greens now, but I hope there are firms out there working on the staples.

I read this New Yorker article a few years back -

Hereā€™s a Telegraph article that mentions a British firm -

Iā€™d like to invest in the tech behind the farms, not the farms themselves. So Harvest London is no from me. That said, there are enough poncy restaurants to keep Harvest in business. Having worked as a waiter, I could definitely sell a dish talking about how local the greens are.

Thereā€™s a worry investing in vertical farms, that you will competing with a lot of (entirely wasteful) agricultural subsidies. While your vertical farm is working to reduce its square footage, the EU will be paying money per acre to your average farmer, and something equivalent will continue post-Brexit too.

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:bug: :robot: :taco: :woman_cook::

In 2013, the United Nations published a landmark report entitled ā€œEdible Insects: future prospects for food and feed security.ā€

This could be a page turner, @Freetrade_Team :books:

Will happen for sure. You get final product in powder or already mixed with other carb. You would not even feel it. I see this huge within working out community which is booming every year

Danoneā€™s another thatā€™s invested in this area.

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Interesting. I have heard of Agricool, a French company.

Another urban farming crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs:

fyi - this is not a endorsement for StadtFarm; do your own research.

This vertical/indoor farming was recently covered in the YouTube series ā€œAge of A.I.ā€ with Robert Downey jr. Very innovative solution to solving the issue of reducing the amount of land used for agriculture.

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Agrify Corp just IPOd

More of a turnkey specialist rather than retailers like Hydrofarm/Growgeneration.

From the S-1

We started 2020 with a backlog of $4 million and during the first six months of 2020 we received additional bookings of $32.9 million in the form of purchase orders or purchase commitments. We recognized revenue of $7.7 million during the first nine months of 2020, and expect to recognize revenue of approximately 75% from the remaining backlog of $29.2 million by June 2021 and the rest gradually thereafter. As of October 28, 2020, we have $121 million of carefully vetted potential sales opportunities (which we refer to as our qualified pipeline). Of this, $53 million of qualified pipeline was generated through our company directly and $68 million through our Agrify-Valiant Joint-Venture. We are presently working to convert this pipeline into confirmed bookings over the next 12 months.

So guidance is $22m for H1, likely over 75% 3 year CAGR. At around $110m~ EV I think its good value.

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Growing Underground are raising on Crowdcube, this looks very exciting as theyā€™re probably leaders in the UK. Also replying to a lot of questions. Among the gems they confirm they were recently approached by a SPAC but declined (!) I canā€™t begin to imagine how many multiples of its current valuation they would have baggedā€¦

https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/zero-carbon-farms/pitches/Z7nErl

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I really like the look of this one, I wonder if their focus on restaurant over retail shows theyā€™ve exhausted what they think they can get already from retail? I would have thought the story would make retail very viable concern, Iā€™m assuming high volume with lower margin is at least part of the reasoning.

Thanks for the heads up @dk1 maybe Iā€™ll own you a box of pea shoots if this one takes off as planned.

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