An industry team led by agri-tech specialist Liberty Produce has been awarded £420,000 (US$588,000) in funding from Innovate UK to scale up hybrid farming and greenhouse technologies that work toward Singapore’s food security and net-zero ambitions. 

Its fully-controlled indoor vertical farming system, Liberator, will be installed at the LivFresh hydroponics farm in Singapore, wher it will be integrated with existing advanced greenhouse technology.

“Part of the issue is that a range of promises have been made around vertical farming being a silver bullet solution for our European food productivity questions,” Dr. Dylan Banks, co-founder, Liberty Produce, tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

“A big challenge for us is communicating to our customers that vertical farming is not going to replac broadacre or glasshouse farming/growing.”

However, real efficiencies can be made by enabling growers with an accessible entry point to test and trial crops, Dr. Banks notes. “We’ve taken an approach used by Dutch growers to utilize technologies to enhance traditional growing methods.”

“The Liberator X has been designed to respond to the need for more research and protocols for optimization across crops.”

The award will see Liberty Produce jointly lead the Hybrid Advanced Research Vertical Farming Environment Systems and Technology (HARVEST) consortium with Singapore-based LivFresh, a high-precision controlled environment (HPCE) company. 

The UK’s James Hutton Institute in Scotland and Republic Polytechnic Singapore are research partners of this project.

The Liberator farming system
Liberty Produce will share the skills and knowledge developed at its full-scale commercial demonstrator, the Totally Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) R&D system, which is based at the James Hutton Institute.

“The Liberator comes in three standard sizes, which are designed to be completely modular, self-contained TCEA systems,” explains Dr. Banks.

In addition to efficiently and cost-effectively growing standard leafy and microgreens, the Liberator systems have the capacity to enable:

• Optimized growth cycles across crops through light, nutrient and temperature sensing and manipulation.

• Speed breeding programs within TCEA to develop fruiting crops optimized for local environments.

• Increased efficiency in propagation.
   

“Liberator systems can be specified to a customer’s particular needs and allow for both staged and rapid expansion: Liberator 5000 (approximately the size of a shipping container); Liberator 500 (approximately 7 m2 of growing space); and Liberator X (approximately the size of a Danish trolley).”

Liberty Produce investigated raising blueberry plantlets in a TCEA system. (Credit: Liberty Produce)Liberty Produce and the James Hutton Institute successfully implemented the Liberator system at the Future Farming Hub, an R&D facility based in Scotland. This particular project investigated raising blueberry plantlets.

“Initial trials delivered proof of concept for speeding germination in TCEA versus glasshouse by cutting germination times from ten weeks in a glasshouse to the 21 days in the facility,” notes Dr. Banks.

Assessing indoor farming efficiency
The team will run trials and investigate different aspects of how the Liberator system of growing can provide optimum efficiency and higher nutrient density for crops needed by the Singaporean market.

At the end of the two-year project, the team will roll out a scalable, turn-key product that enables increased Singaporean domestic crop production.

“Customers have the option of specifying their needs from the base unit Liberator system, which can incorporate combinations of our leading-edge proprietary technologies,” Dr. Banks highlights.

Liberty Produce’s list of proprietary solutions include Nanobubble technology that infuses nutrient solutions with the air; O2 and/or CO2 micro- and nano-bubbles to increase rootzone oxygenation and nutrient bioavailability; sensor technology including hyperspectral imaging; localized temperature measurement; and humidity sensing.

These technologies have been designed to deliver year-round local produce in even the most austere environments, the company highlights.

“We are delighted to receive international recognition for our hybrid farming technology and to be given the opportunity to contribute to Singapore’s net-zero and food security goals,” says Dr. Banks.

“We look forward to collaborating in Singapore to the benefit of their national production capabilities.”

Garden city’s food strategy
The HARVEST team will apply and refine hybrid farming techniques developed in the UK, with funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), to support Singapore’s national strategy. This is pegged as Liberty Produce’s first stage milestone towards net-zero food production.

The Liberator indoor system by Liberty Produce. (Credit: Liberty Produce)The Singapore government has initiated a number of strategic policy initiatives with the goal of increasing self-production of its fresh produce by 30 percent by 2030 via investment in high-tech farms, among other measures.

“For Singapore to achieve her 30 by 30 goal, continued innovation in boosting productivity and nutrition density are key within the realms of commercial pragmatism,” comments Karthik Rajan, founder of LivFresh.

“We are very pleased to be a part of this unique cross-border academia-enterprise collaboration and look forward to enabling access to cutting edge innovation in urban farming.”

Currently, the Republic of Singapore imports over 90 percent of its food supplies from foreign countries, putting it at disproportionate risk to fluctuations in global food supplies and prices, as evidenced by the disruption to food chains across national borders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a great example of Singapore and the UK collaborating to advance shared goals of our countries in an area of increasing importance – sustainable and secure food production,” remarks British High Commissioner to Singapore, Kara Owen.

“As Singapore works to increase capabilities in in-country production of fresh food, we are delighted to be partners through exchanging skills and knowhow. The result should be a scalable solution in high-tech vertical farming to address our future food security needs.”