SmartFarms 2018

Andrew Brandeis, ND
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

When leaders from Natural Products, Natural Retail, BlockChain and AgTech converge to vision our idyllic supply chain, a surprising vision of our farming future is revealed.

The Dutchess is a secret hotel nestled into a rich valley of natural and NYC-acquired abundance. In partnership with RETURN, MegaFood Blue — the future-looking innovation arm at MegaFood — invited leaders in agriculture, blockchain, indoor farming and supply chain management to converge on a topic near to our hearts: How can we increase efficiencies in farming while ensuring fair wages and soil regeneration? As leading companies who purchase large quantities of produce from farmers around the world, we want to ensure that our practices are sustainable for more than just our bottom line.

MegaFood, Stonyfield, Mom’s Organic, Good Spread, and representatives and environmental consultants working with Ben & Jerry’s and Walmart met with cutting-edge blockchain startups in unique environment designed to get from idea to practice as quickly as possible. Traditional conferences where industry players interact tend to be indoors, crowded, and designed with a speaker-audience vibe. Tangible results from conferences like these can be hard to realize. So for SmartFarms we took the best thing about conferences, the speakers, and got rid of the rest. We put these leaders around dinner tables, saunas, meditation cushions, and workshops to build both relationships and ideas.

We learned that blockchain technology is the next major advancement to happen to the internet since the iPhone. It allows for decentralization and transparency in a way that has until now been inaccessible. Decentralization allows anyone (within context) to participate in a network. Whereas current centralized systems rely on large companies to host central servers, blockchain distributes pieces of ‘servers’ on myriad computers allowing for a truly democratic and secure information sharing. And since ledgers are public but anonymous, you can always be sure transactions are valid. This is being applied in agriculture in surprising and much needed ways.

Current agriculture supply chains are confusing and down-right inefficient with so many middlemen. The farmer has the least say in the process, and often must sacrifice the environment in order to maintain profits. And since there’s no transparency in the current model, there’s little incentive for prioritizing sustainable practices. Blockchain shortens the supply chain, removes middlemen and can build in environmental sustainability at its core.

Producers Market is a blockchain technology company working with producers to bring their products to a global market via the block chain. Producers helps farmers get paid sooner and executes automated contracts that enables farmers to be sure of the sales their crops will yield long before harvest. MegaFood is helping producers connect with and move our supply chain onto their platform to help facilitate this transition.

Regen Network uses the blockchain, real time sensors and state protocols to monitor ecological regeneration. Companies like MegaFood can actively participate in carbon drawdown. We’re working on a pilot project thats adds a much needed transparency layer for our customers to see how we work with farmers to regenerate our soil.

Ambrosus is a blockchain-powered IoT network for food and pharmaceutical enterprises, enabling secure and frictionless dialogue between sensors, distributed ledgers and databases to optimize supply chain visibility and quality assurance. MegaFood has seriously high standards for our produce, and we hate to have to reject shipments. We visioned a future where Ambrosus creates sensors that can do quality control beginning the moment crops leave the farm. Our goal is to know the moment a batch is compromised to intervene immediately.

Additionally, we learned how indoor vertical farming is changing the landscape. While its true that this type of farming does not regenerate soil, it requires significantly less acreage to grow a crop. Its not being presented as a solution for all farming, rather identifying the crops that can thrive locally year round and focusing on those in small urban settings — land that would not otherwise be used for farming. There are different schools of thought on the environmental impact of this methodology, but we’re certain we’ll be seeing more of these farms in the very near future.

The Dutchess redefines farm to table, with the farm about 100ft from the table

SmartFarms opened our eyes to both the need to participate in soil regeneration and farming transparency. MegaFood is leading partnerships with 3 amazing startups that do just that. We’re committed to increasing farming efficiencies while nourishing and regenerating our soil. And though I can’t speak for the other companies involved, we’re aware of several other projects that were born at SmartFarms. It was almost hard not to change the world from that dinner table.

BlueBlog

MegaFood Blue: Our journey to cure nutritional poverty in our lifetime

Andrew Brandeis, ND

Written by

Pathologic Problem Solver

BlueBlog

BlueBlog

MegaFood Blue: Our journey to cure nutritional poverty in our lifetime

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade