Press Release: Liberty Produce awarded funding to advance Singapore’s food sustainability goals
Updated: Apr 19, 2021
19th April 2021
London, UK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Release: Liberty Produce awarded funding to advance Singapore’s food sustainability and net-zero goals through hybrid vertical farming
The project places UK intellectual property and novel technologies at the forefront of systems architecture in Totally Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) and food security.
LONDON, UK, 19 April, 2021:
An industry team led by AgTech specialist Liberty Produce has won Innovate UK funding to develop innovative hybrid farming and greenhouse technologies to work towards Singapore’s food security and net-zero goals.
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 and Republic Polytechnic Singapore (RP) are research partners.
The Singapore government has initiated a number of strategic policy initiatives with the goal of increasing self-production of its fresh produce by 30% by 2030 via investment in high-tech farms, among other measures. Currently, the Republic of Singapore imports over 90% 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.
The HARVEST team will apply and refine hybrid farming techniques developed in the UK, with funding from UKRI, to support Singapore’s national strategy. This is Liberty Produce’s first stage milestone towards net-zero food production.
Liberty Produce will transfer skills and knowhow developed at its Totally Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) R&D system based at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee. Its Liberator farming system will be installed at the LivFresh site in Singapore where it will be integrated with existing advanced greenhouse technology. The team will run trials and investigate different aspects of how combined-system 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.
“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”, Dr Dylan Banks, Co-Founder, Liberty Produce, said. “We look forward to collaborating in Singapore to the benefit of their national production capabilities.”
British High Commissioner to Singapore, Her Excellency Kara Owen, elaborated: “This is a great example of Singapore and UK collaborating to advance shared goals of our countries in an area of increasing importance – sustainable and secure food production. 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.”
Karthik Rajan, Founder, LivFresh, said: “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. 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.”
Professor Derek Stewart, Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre at the James Hutton Institute, added: “This project is a truly international collaborative effort and embodies the ethos of the new £27m Advanced Plant Growth Centre initiative. It aims to deliver increased commercial, economic and environmental benefits to the agricultural and food and drink sectors by innovative use of precision-controlled environment technologies.
“Building on our strategic partnership with Liberty Produce, and now LivFresh, we look forward to seeing our science in action in South East Asia and helping Singapore reach its food self-sufficiency targets in a sustainable manner.”
Image: Liberty Produce’s Liberator TCEA system will be integrated with existing high-tech greenhouse technology to produce an urban environment-friendly vertical farming capability for the Singapore growers’ market.
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Notes to editors:
The two-year project began on 1 April 2021.
Liberty Produce’s systems are modular, configurable and upgradable to provide growers and researchers with an accessible entry point into advanced farming technologies and to enable them to easily expand.
Life cycle analysis and product adaptability to the environment is essential to optimising the Liberator system for specific crops and specific climates.
The data-driven system deploys in-farm sensors to optimise production and assure product output.
The project provides export opportunities by placing UK IP and novel technologies at the forefront of systems architecture in TCEA, while promoting food security.
The project will create high-value jobs both in the UK and Singapore, and will drive the next generation of agriculture by building the technology and delivering the research required.
The HARVEST team:
Liberty Produce: UK AgriTech company driving the sector towards greater sustainability, efficiency and security by building leading-edge, totally controlled environment agriculture (TCEA) technology that enables the growth of local produce year-round.
LivFresh: Singapore-based farming company with a mission to revolutionise access to fresh, locally grown produce through high precision controlled environment (HPCE) farming methods.
James Hutton Institute: Globally recognised research organisation delivering fundamental and applied science to drive the sustainable use of land and natural resources.
Republic Polytechnic, Singapore: Centre for agricultural/horticultural expertise with facilities for installing, testing and developing solutions.
About Liberty Produce: Liberty Produce is a farming technology company founded in 2018 to drive innovations that will enable us to meet our global crop requirements over the next century, without harming the planet. As experts in the development of technology (from advanced lighting systems to machine learning for integrated control systems) for the breadth of indoor agriculture (from glasshouses to Totally Controlled Environment Agriculture systems), Liberty delivers research and products that consistently push boundaries. Liberty Produce develops and builds systems that reduce operational costs with enhanced resource efficiency, improve yields and increase sustainability towards net-zero and food security goals. www.liberty-produce.com
Media enquiries: Claire Apthorp / media@liberty-produce.com +44 (0) 7920403068
The James Hutton Institute is a world-leading scientific organisation encompassing a distinctive range of integrated strengths in land, crop, waters, environmental and socio-economic science. It undertakes research for customers including the Scottish and UK governments, the EU and other organisations worldwide. The Institute has over 500 employees and 120 PhD students and with associated bodies and spin-out companies there are over 750 people working on Hutton campuses. The James Hutton Group comprises the Institute, the Hutton Foundation and our commercial subsidiary, James Hutton Limited (JHL), which is the vehicle for translating and commercialising the scientific expertise, intellectual property, facilities and resources of the Institute. JHL is the Institute's interface with the private and public sector where commercial services are required. It offers customers a comprehensive range of analytical, research and development, crop breeding, and consultancy services drawing on the full range of expertise in the Institute.
The Institute takes its name from the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment scientist, James Hutton, who changed the way we think about our world with deep insights into land, soils, crops and the climate and is widely regarded as the founder of modern geology. He was also an experimental farmer and agronomist. For more information visit www.hutton.ac.uk.