IHCEA Launch: What the Press Thought

On October 11th, Liberty Produce celebrated the official opening of the new IHCEA container vertical farm built with Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) with funding from Innovate UK at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee.

We had some excellent press coverage of the launch, including some insightful commentaries on the significance of the launch for the growth of vertical farming in the UK and across the globe. Here is a round up of all the great articles written!

STV broadcaster Steve McMenemy’s awesome footage of the facility highlights the ways in which we “use the latest technology to grow crops inside of shipping containers.” This edited video clip also includes part of their interview with co-Director Zeina Chapman, who emphasises the fact that the system is container-based means that it can be installed and run anywhere because it is not reliant on external conditions.

The Herald Scotland featured a particularly thoughtful piece both on the launch and the wider implications for a sustainable farming future by Rohese Devereux (published on 12/10/19). Devereux highlights the challenges facing both traditional farming and early adopters of vertical farming technologies, explicitly connecting these challenges with the central goal of the IHCEA and Liberty Produce: to build the tech that makes crop production more sustainable by reducing operational costs, intensive labour and increasing yield.

Read the full article here.

Another great article for Agronomist and Arable Farmer by John Swire (published on 17/10/19) is ‘Innovation Hub for Controlled Environment Agriculture launched in Dundee’. Swire emphasises the promising and successful collaboration between Liberty Produce, CHAP, Innovate UK and the James Hutton Institute.

Read the full article here.

“Advances in agritech, such as vertical farming, are a key element of the UK producing environmentally friendly, productive, sustainable food, which can compete on a global level.” The Scottish Farmer

The Scottish Farmer also covers the launch of the IHCEA in an article by Claire Taylor, ‘Productive modern farming to embrace agritech’ (published on 17/10/19). She takes a tour of the new facilities, where “vertical trays of microgreens were being grown in a controlled chamber under different LED light combinations”.

Read the full article here.

An informative article in The Scotsman, found in PressReader, by Brian Henderson is ‘Scotland on the up in the field of vertical farming’ (published on 12/10/19). This excellent piece highlights how the Innovation Hub is designed to “draw the different disciplines involved in the sector together and allow advances in technology.”

“Growing food in towers of artificially lit ‘fields’ indoors could be the future of food production - and is set to be researched in Dundee.” The Evening Telegraph

The article ‘Vertical farming project’, found in PressReader, in The Evening Telegraph (published on 11/10/19) is also an excellent summary of our opening.

Nancy Nicolson (published 12/10/19) also covered the launch of the facility for The Courier ‘Vertical farming movement takes step forward’ and in The Press and Journal, ‘New research facility to advance vertical farming’.