Urban Crop Solutions

The local, hyper-efficient plant factory

Photo: Urban Crop Solutions

Urban Crop Solutions create fully-automated indoor farming systems with LED lighting. They produce local food hyper-efficiently on a small surface area, without using herbicides or pesticides.

LED lighting is the (not so) secret ‘weapon’ of Urban Crops Solutions. It emits little heat, so the lighting can be placed close to the plant. This takes up less space, allowing the plants to be positioned closer to each other. They can even be stacked: one square metre can suddenly offer more than four square metres of growing space.

The seeds in an Urban Crop Solutions system grow in a controlled climate, with adjusted supplements of minerals, and doses of extra light, temperature and CO2. The spectrum of LED lighting is set to the needs of each crop. Even the flavour can be managed using the right lighting algorithms. The fact that crops grow in water instead of soil means that herbicides or pesticides are no longer required.

The advantages:

  • Higher nutritional value
  • No use of herbicides and pesticides
  • Local production; transport is limited
  • Water consumption is just 5% compared with traditional growing methods
  • Quicker growth
  • Non seasonal

Comparison

 

Traditional open field

Greenhouse

Urban Crops Solutions

growing time 70 days 40-50 days

21 days

number of crops per m2

18

25

25-300

number of harvest cycles according to season according to season

all year round

water consumption 35 litres 15 litres

1,5 litre

pesticides/herbicides often less often never
place open field open field

overall