July 2021 - 1

New research seen on
Reflex's crop safety on
vegetables
Drip irrigation shows
promise for spinach
growers
7
13
18
Consider pros and cons
of selling at farmers'
markets
July 2021 | Volume 55 |
Issue 7
STRAIGHT-UP SCIENCE
Vertical greens growing trend gets its own USDA grant
Controlled-Environment Lighting Laboratory (CELL) is a vertical farming research facility developed by Erik Runkle in the Department of
Horticulture at Michigan State University. Photos: MSU
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
The greens growers' frontier of
vertical farms now has USDA support.
A multistate team of university
researchers has a four-year USDA
specialty crop research initiative (SCRI)
grant to study the best practices and
economics of indoor growing and
how to do it well. Called OptimIA
(Optimizing Indoor Agriculture), the
project is formally titled " Improving
the profitability and sustainability of
indoor leafy-greens production. "
Receiving the grant is a sort of
Michigan State University Associate
Professor Roberto Lopez
coming-of-age moment for a relatively
young sector of agriculture.
" To my knowledge, it's one of the
first grants devoted to vertical farming
funded by the USDA, " said Michigan
State University (MSU) Associate
Professor Roberto Lopez, who's a
principal investigator on the project.
The SCRI grants have supported
greenhouse production proposals and
even distributed grants on lighting and
LEDs. But OptimIA will deal only with
so-called indoor-grown operations that
make no direct use of natural light.
Going to the growers
The team of horticulturists,
engineers and economists led by MSU
has $2.7 million from the USDA in
addition to matching funds from the
private sector, making it $5.4 million.
Work on the four-year grant began
in 2020; Lopez said due to
pandemic-related disruption, the
efforts may continue through 2025.
" It's a large multidisciplinary project,
and one component will involve
on-farm trials, " Lopez said. " We want
to make sure that our research is going
to be able to be used by the industry,
so once we have replicated our studies,
we're going to verify them at various
indoor farms across the country to
make sure that (with) what we've found
in the lab, that there will be similar
results in the industry. "
See VERTICAL, page 5
Multiple factors shape 2021 vegetable crop
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
Quirks of weather, pandemic and trade
are shaping the year being experienced by
vegetable growers throughout the country.
Statistics and officials paint a picture of
a resilient industry facing challenges in
the current season.
USDA Chief Economist Seth Meyer
said in a speech at the department's
agricultural outlook event that the year
began with a sense of optimism.
" Despite continued challenges,
markets are functioning well, and the
food supply remains safe, abundant and
affordable, " he said. " Commodity prices
are strong .... We continue to focus on
short-run navigation of a continuing
pandemic alongside long running
challenges to improve agricultural
productivity, grow overseas markets
for U.S. products and maintain the U.S.
position as having one of the lowest-cost,
most abundant and most sustainably
produced food supplies in the world. "
Apart from direct government farm
payments, cash receipts for row crops
and cattle - driven by the export
market - were outpacing specialty
crops, Meyer said.
Together, soybean and corn receipts are
forecast to increase $16.1 billion (19%)
in 2021, " more than offsetting declines
in fruits/nuts, vegetables/melons and
cotton, " he said in his speech.
" The Corn Belt is doing well but other
parts are not, " he said in a press meeting
later. " Farm income is actually falling, but
when you look at things in cash receipts
that are actually
driving receipts
higher, they are
very traditional
Corn-Belt grown
and produced
crops, and that's
because of Chinese
demand, quite
honestly.
" Folks that aren't
SETH MEYER
growing corn,
soybeans, pork and beef, are going to have
bigger declines in farm income. And you
may even see positive increases in farm
See OUTLOOK, page 14

July 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2021