WUR And Vertical Farming Company Infarm Join Forces

Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and Infarm, the world's largest cloud network for vertical farming, will jointly investigate how Infarm can optimize the cultivation of hydroponic tomatoes with maximum taste, nutritional value and yield. The research program consists of three related projects with a duration of four years. Infarm will cover the total cost of the research program. In addition, Infarm's Crop Genetics team will establish its own research facility on the Wageningen Campus in the course of 2022.

Vertical farming is a form of indoor farming in which cultivation takes place under controlled conditions with stacked cultivation layers in, for example, factory halls or shops. Production takes up significantly less land area than land-based farming and ensures extremely efficient use of water and nutrients. Because cultivation is possible everywhere, the number of transport kilometers from producer to consumer is minimal. Moreover, diseases and pests are literally kept outside the door, so that crop protection products are no longer necessary. Infarm has already set up more than 1,400 vertical farms in stores and Infarm Growing Centers in North America, Asia and Europe. The company now grows more than 75 crops.

Improve yield and quality
'This research program will provide new knowledge of the interaction between plants and their environment, plant physiology, mathematical modeling and sensor technology,' says Leo Marcelis, principal researcher and chair holder of Horticulture and Product Physiology at WUR. 'For Wageningen University & Research, this collaboration with Infarm is a wonderful opportunity to apply experimental results in practice, because the research environment also represents the cultivation environment. Our goal is to make the data and knowledge that Infarm and WUR collect widely applicable in order to directly improve yield and quality in tomato cultivation, while at the same time saving on resources such as water and energy. That has enormous implications for the vertical farming sector as a whole.'

Cloud network
Guy Galonska is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Infarm. In the vertical farms of Infarm, temperature, input of water and nutrients and the development of the crops are continuously monitored and stored in an Infarm cloud network. Galonska: "Infarm is committed to using the billions of data points generated by our vertical farming cloud network to rapidly expand our portfolio of marketable crops and grow the widest range of fruits and vegetables."

According to Galonska, locally and sustainably grown tomatoes and other fruit crops represent a huge growth opportunity for both Infarm and the vertical farming sector as a whole. 'By collaborating with the Horticulture & Product Physiology chair group at WUR, Infarm is joining the leading center of global innovation for horticultural research. In close collaboration with researchers at WUR, our Crop Science team is looking for ways to reduce total costs and energy demand while further improving the quality of the tomatoes in our Infarm Growing Centers. The aim is to provide consumers with top quality tomatoes with better taste, greater diversity and higher nutritional value at an affordable price, grown locally, all year round'

Three research projects
The research program of Infarm and Wageningen University & Research consists of three interconnected research projects, each conducted by a WUR PhD student or postdoc. The work uses state-of-the-art sensors and scanners to evaluate the growth rate, health and nutrient content of the tomatoes. Two projects are investigating how efficiently tomatoes in a vertical farm collect and distribute light. This will be done with an innovative 3D scanning procedure. By looking at the physical characteristics of the tomatoes, the optimal amount of light and other factors, this will allow Infarm to ramp up tomato production in its vertical farms worldwide to meet consumer demand for fresh tomatoes all year round.