By Kathleen Berger, Executive Producer for Science and Technology
An AgTech company from Utah has a unique approach for providing solutions to a global food crisis. Renaissance Ag created an AgriFood innovation designed to help farmers and ranchers. The system is called PastureBox.
“An autonomous system that produces fresh grass, fresh water, fresh barley, wheat, alfalfa every single day. It seeds, it harvests, it produces,” said Jamie Tyrell, International Market Partnerships at Renaissance Ag. “All the lights come on, it waters, and every single day you get fresh feed from the system.”
It’s a self-contained, fully-automated hydroponic system using only water, electricity and seeds.
“Essentially it’s a 45 foot high, cube shipping container,” said Tyrell. “There’s lights in there, there’s racks in there, there’s a full automation system. It’s hydroponic, so it’s using water to grow things.”
The system can produce up to 3,000 pounds of premium fresh-sprouted livestock feed every day.
“It enables producers to have a steady state of feed all year round and it is not subject to things like weather,” explained Tyrell.
The precision agriculture provides solutions in support of global food security .Renaissance Ag pitched its product onstage at the Trilateral AgriFood Innovation Symposium in St. Louis at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. At the symposium, global innovation leaders from Israel, United Arab Emirates and St. Louis discussed solutions for food security and climate-smart agriculture.
BioSTL hosted the event, as St. Louis is a hub for plant science innovation. BioSTL invited Renaissance Ag to give a presentation.
“We’ve invited a set of innovators, entrepreneurs, startups putting forth brilliant, cutting-edge ideas that we can use here in Missouri, that we hope our counterparts in United Arab Emirates and Israel can also use, and bring to others in the world as well,” said Donn Rubin, BioSTL Founding President & CEO.
Renaissance Ag believes PastureBox could strengthen global food systems by providing solutions with benefits, allowing farmers to maximize use of their land while reducing costs.
“If I can ask a producer for how much time they spend feeding their animals every day? It’s pretty much all day. They’re always doing something in order to get that feed to that animal, whether it’s moving hay, whether it’s moving bedding. So, if I can tell the farmer, you can produce this on site, on the farm, and actually reduce your inputs in the field – what can you do with that time that you’re going to gain?” explained Tyrell. “It actually enables a producer to engage in other challenges on their farms.”
