Nanofarm Promises Little Work, Lots of Fresh Produce Gwendolyn Wu - TakePart
go to original November 26, 2016

Nanofarm: The Food Growing Appliance by Replantable — Kickstarter (New Tech Today)

For many city-dwelling apartment renters, securing a home with a sprig of green space is a tall order, let alone a place that gets enough sunshine or rain to cultivate a fresh vegetable garden. A pair of designers have found a way to bring farms to homes - no outdoor space required.

“There’s a lot of people who have tried to start a garden to have fresh-picked food at home,” Ruwan Subasinghe, lead product designer of the start-up Replantable, wrote in an email to TakePart. “But their garden never lived longer than a single season, because the soil was poor, or the plants didn’t get enough light, or they didn’t have a green thumb, or most often because they just didn’t have the time to keep up with it.”

Enter the nanofarm, a roughly 18-by-14-inch wooden box that uses LEDs in place of the sun to nourish greens. Subasinghe has also created specially designed plant pads for the boxes. The fabric pads are woven to trap moisture and nurture the crops - including lettuce, arugula, beets, and bok choy - all without the use of pesticides. (Photo: Courtesy Replantable)

“Instead of trying to modify the crop through genetic modification or pesticides, indoor agriculture modifies the environment that the crop grows in,” Subasinghe explained. Subasinghe and business partner Alex Weiss have turned to Kickstarter to fund their indoor farming project. The nanofarms cost $350, along with $25 for a set of five plant pads, which contain 16–25 plants each.

Read the rest at TakePart

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