The story of Planet Farms is one of friendship, innovation, extraordinary people, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Planet Farms was born of the founders’ shared eagerness and mission to revolutionize traditional agriculture and help the world grow. And naturally, from their love of high-quality and outstanding flavor, rooted in their Italian culture. Planet Farms inverts the historical role of technology in agriculture from defensive to preventive. The aim is no longer to check the natural environment but safeguard it by creating the ideal conditions for plant growth.
Planet Farms is a leading vertical farming company that has developed a vertical cultivation system that is unique in the world. It allows the perfect harmonization of all the fundamental parameters for cultivating greens to obtain products rich in taste and nutritional properties.
Our union of world-class technology and the best of Italian agricultural tradition offers a concrete, scalable answer to the need for agronomic products that are healthy, high quality, low environmental impact, available all year round, and affordable for everyone. With its fully integrated supply chain, a seed comes in and a finished product goes out. We offer a virtuous system of food production that ensures food safety and protects against sudden climatic shocks that could compromise regular food supply and product quality.
Interview with Roel Janssen
What drives you?
We are transforming how we farm. Proud of our Italian culinary tradition, we have created the ultimate vertical farm to give life to a future in which we can feed people with fresh, nutritious, flavorful food that is good for us and good for our planet. The world population is constantly growing and feeding it will soon become a serious issue, also because in 2050, more than 80% of the global population will live in urban areas. The vertical farming system developed by Planet Farms helps ad.
Why should the delegate attend your presentation?
In addition to creating employment and new professional roles, Planet Farms integrates itself with the territory, gathering its distinctive characteristics and reinforcing its culinary strengths. Planet Farms is committed to preserving local gastronomic excellence found throughout the world and Italy in particular. Planet Farms inverts the historical role of technology in agriculture from defensive to preventive. The aim is no longer to check the natural environment but safeguard it by creating the ideal conditions for plant growth. The sophisticated “Gaia VF” system for monitoring vegetable growth generates a constant data flow for analysis, allowing the development of an increasingly ideal environment around the crops and improving production with each cycle; plants receive the perfect intensity and shade of light thanks to specialized high-efficiency, energy-saving LED lamps; temperature and humidity are kept at optimal levels thanks to a sophisticated climate control system; air filtration blocks the entry of pests, micro-organisms and particulate matter, using cleanroom technology so that no pesticides, herbicides or other agro-pharmaceuticals are required; irrigation water and mineral salts are recycled, reducing their consumption and avoiding their dispersion in the environment; cultivation on multiple floors, 365 days a year, near distribution sites reduces land consumption and transportation impacts.
What emerging technologies/trends do you see as having the greatest potential in the short and long run?
Any technology that enables agriculture to merge tradition, excellence, innovation, and environmental and social responsibility and any technology that ensures maximum efficiency (producing more with less). Thanks to its fully integrated supply chain – from seed to package – and its use of advanced technologies such as blockchain, Planet Farms ensures premium quality, transparent, traceable, and certifiable produce. Today consumers demand transparency, they want to know where the food they eat comes from, how it is produced and how it arrive on their table. It’s a matter of trust, of knowledge, in order to ensure people that food production must not be a threat to the environment anymore.
What kind of impact do you expect them to have?
A differentiating product focused on the needs of consumers and technology that enables us to adjust to changing needs.
What are the barriers that might stand in the way?
We need to make sure we practice what we preach as an industry. The advantages are clearly there for indoor farmed produce, but we have to make sure we consistently perform, communicate wisely and remain relevant to the consumer.
“Special Quote”
At Planet Farms, we bring flavor to the world without starving its resources.
Roel Janssen is Chief Business Officer at Planet Farms and will speak at the 2021 edition of the Vertical Farming Conference.
About Planet Farms
We are on a mission to transform agriculture. Building on our proud Italian culinary tradition, we are creating the ultimate sustainable farming business and imagining a new future, where we can feed our communities fresh, nutritious and flavorful food that is good for our people and our Planet.