Brother Ilona Mask is preparing a high-tech revolution in the food industry

Photo: Square Root

45-year-old Kimbal Mask wants to do the same thing with agriculture as his brother Ilon did with space and electric vehicles. His company Square root popularizes and develops new technologies for growing food in vertical farms located in containers.

He plans to feed the whole world, but he will do it in the style of Silicon Valley, пишет New York Times.

Kimbal got rich by working with his brother, now he is buying up land in all of the United States. He believes in an environmentally friendly "real food", which should in the literal and figurative sense of the word feed consumers, farmers, the United States and the entire planet.

In his business, strategy, idea and marketing come to the fore. He does not intend to simply create innovative vertical farms throughout the country. Kimball plans to develop an entire infrastructure for creating “real food”: training centers, promoting a new nutritional philosophy, venture programs, special accelerators.

Photo: Square Root

He believes that his system will completely change US agriculture and American eating habits.

“Food is a wonderful gift that we give each other three times a day. But it’s hard to imagine a more terrible food system than the one we have today,” Musk Jr. said.

He travels around the states with his idea of ​​the food industry of the future, telling potential consumers about it. In 2017, he attended the 50 major conference related to food and business.

His non-profit organization has established 425 training gardens in kindergartens and schools, so that children from a young age understand how “real food” appears. Musk says that scaling is important for any business. All previous companies that tried to promote the idea of ​​the right food did not get enough results, because they could not scale their model, but he is sure that he can.

Photo: Square Root

Critics of the Mask nutrition model say that working with farmers on 100% is different from working with technologies. Michel Nishchan, Founder and CEO Wolesome wave, which is trying to make fruits and vegetables more accessible for people with low incomes, says that Mask has the right ideas. But the ability to understand breakthrough technologies and scaling is not tantamount to the ability to negotiate with farmers and grow products themselves. In her opinion, Mask lacks practical experience directly on the farm.

In October 2017, the accelerator Kimbal Mask Square root graduated first graduates. During the year 10 businessmen learned to work with container farms and market grown products (selected from more than 500 applications).

Now Square root getting ready to recruit new students.

Each accelerator member received from the company a cargo container with vertical systems for growing plants, irrigation systems and a set of blue and red LEDs, and learned to get a harvest from all of this. According to Kimbal Mask, such containers will fill the cities and will be an important source of food.

The trusses are arranged in steel transport containers with an area of ​​30 square meters. Inside are four parallel walls with cells filled with water enriched with fertilizers. Greens and herbs grow in these pockets, which are illuminated with blue and pink LEDs. In such a transport container, you can grow up to 50 thousands of lettuce per year per head and get a crop commensurate with a field of 0,4 per hectare.

Sensors are installed in the container, which display readings on the control unit. This makes it possible not only to monitor all the parameters of the environment, but also to set the necessary ones. Here you can create both a tropical climate and the conditions of the northeastern United States.

Container farm development deals Finnish company Exsilio oy. Created by her containers length 13 meters accommodate several shelves with beds for growing vegetables, herbs and leafy greens. The farm only needs water and electricity, so it can be installed near the restaurant, shop or near residential buildings.

After graduation, entrepreneurs Square roots use different business models. Some sell vegetables to offices, others grow produce for residents in poor areas. Some are working on engineering solutions for innovative farming, such as lighting systems and data analytics. Recently Square roots raised $ 5 million on a seed investment round. With this money, the accelerator plans to build large campuses with container farms in several cities in America.

Photo: Square Root

By 2020 year Square roots hope to cover 20 cities. The ideology of the program is based on the fact that a business is being created that improves living conditions on the planet.

Vertical farms are becoming an American trend. The world's largest vertical farm Aerofarms was built in newark, new jersey. At the end of 2015, the company Gotham greens opened the world's largest covered farm in Chicago.

But these developments receive their share of skepticism. The main point that is amenable to criticism is that vertical greenhouses consume a lot of electricity. Square roots They are trying to solve this problem by studying the possibility of switching to solar energy.

Vertical farms do not harm the environment, use less space, are economical in terms of the use of resources and produce crops year-round. With this already created technology which provide vegetables rich flavor even in winter.

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