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International Cooperation

Robotic Farm Uses Renewable Energy To Grow

06/02/2012

Imagine a do-it-yourself, neighborhood farm that provides sustainably grown food using renewable resources and recycled production equipment.

Imagine a do-it-yourself, neighborhood farm that provides sustainably grown food using renewable resources and recycled production equipment. Such a farm actually exists. First Fruits Farms located in Germantown, Maryland, is a prototype farm developing a robotic farming system that it hopes to be able to replicate to grow healthy food in neighborhoods across the nation.

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First Fruit Farms is featured on Kickstarter, where it is trying to harvest $25,000 in funding by Feb. 24 to help complete its initial pilot project. The farm recycles motors, engines and other materials to develop a series of greenhouse robots that “anyone can replicate with simple tools and access to their local dump.” The farm says that if enough funding is raised, it can built a greens transplanter, greens harvester and greens autoseeder.

But it’s not just greens the farm hopes to grow. The group has plans to use their robot gardening techniques to grow an assortment of vegetables and on the horizon maybe even robot-managed fish tanks, creating “an eco-friendly, closed loop system.” Using geothermal cooling and evaporation systems, the farm plans to develop machine-controlled tomato and vine crops. Rain catchment cisterns are planned for the farm along with storm-water injectors for excess runoff.

The farm employs hydroponics, using rain water purified with solar UV, to feed the plants. The hydroponics system is a recirculating system, so there’s no water runoff. The farm says that using hydroponic techniques allows it to avoid many plant diseases and grow food without the use of pesticides. Additional renewable systems used on the farm include an anaerobic digester that uses methane and organic fertilizer for production and a compost greenhouse heating system. Using a compost heating system not only reuses food and yard waste but cuts out the heating costs associated with greenhouse growing.

First Fruits says that it will give at least 10 percent of its first round of production, otherwise known as its “first fruits,” to help feed those in need. The farm will donate the harvest to local families through Manna Foods in Gaithersburg, Md., and other local food banks that can handle perishable foods.

Eventually, the farm even hopes to offer virtual Internet farming for disabled workers and community gardeners. “After our farm is up and running, we will be putting these systems in schools, rooftops, neighborhoods and inner city food deserts.”

By Kim Anh

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