Urban Farm

1. As we know the food requirement is more than the production rate. Also according to UN, Earth’s population would be 11.2 billion by 2100 , this means that the food requirement will increase while land will be used up for residential or other purposes , thus we thought of a solution by growing food within a city home where soil, space and heights are constrained. 

2. We have come up with a microcontroller based hydroponic system which has a compact design, affordable cost, easy installation and less power requirements that can be used to cultivate plants . Our product is basically a DIY kit which will enable people to carry out the process of agriculture in their houses.

3. Our goal is not to remove the traditional agricultural processes but rather to aid them in fulfilling the food requirements of the world leaving no one to starve behind. 

According to the United Nations, if the population keeps increasing at the rate it is increasing as per now; Earth’s population would be 11.2 billion by 2100! Even though the United Nations also says that after that time, the population increase curve will get steeper, feeding and having enough resources for 11.2 billion people is no joke given the number of resources we currently have in our hands. Thus, the problem we are addressing is the lack of soil cover where proper vegetation can actually take place. Also everyday more and more soil is being degraded for a plethora of reasons. The reasons can be excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, excessive rainfall, surface run-off, wind erosion, tillage, and much more. Also, some patches of land are being unfit for cultivation due to lack of nutrients that maybe because of the over-growing of crops and also due to toxins that may be released into the soil by e-waste and other harmful substances.  Being firm believers of the saying, “Prevention is better than Cure” we are trying to prevent this problem from being a global menace in the near future.

In a nut shell our solution to the problem of lack of agricultural lands, is to execute the process of growing food everywhere, irrespective of the fact that fertile land might not be available. In order to achieve this we have created a product which utilises hydroponics to help plants grow. This product of ours can be easily installed, with low maintenance requirements as most of the functions are automated.It can also be stacked solving the problem of diminished spaces. The flow of liquid fertiliser is controlled by live motoring, timers,  special profiles, time delay and usage of open source server for security reasons with zero downtime and full control. The microcontroller is controlled by an open source programming language with the help of the server we are able to provide GUI for the user to customise his or her farm as per their need and requirements. We are also working on an app which will bring the control of the farms to their mobile phones. We came up with this solution keeping in mind that in the future this might become a necessity for the people and should be made available to everyone, hence we made it highly affordable.

Even though given the potential of the solution we have crafted, our solution can be used by all the people and can be delivered to a large number of communities, our solution’s target audience is mainly the people who live in the urban area. This is because the concept of hydroponics and kitchen farming is often capable of only serving in urban areas. This is because there is often plenty of space for agriculture in rural areas and the concept of ‘kitchen garden’ is mainly seen only in urban areas. By our solution, a considerable amount of farming can be done even in a corner of any house, occupying just a little space because of its stackable design. Even in apartments, where there is not enough space to have a kitchen garden, our solution can actually enable all the people to have a kitchen garden. Also, our solution can increase the agricultural cover of this planet without actually increasing the amount of land given to agriculture! This is because our solution can help practice agriculture using the same amount of land with more production. This will definitely create a really positive impact in the lives of the people it serves.

We were poised with the challenge of creating an innovation which would make our food system sustainable.  With our solution to the land-use problem, we will be able to help incorporate land use changes and we would be able to encourage the judicious use of land even in urban areas by the urban population themselves. Also, it would help increase the vegetation cover without increasing the land devoted to vegetation.  It would also help scale new business models, in urban areas too and would help increase the amount of resources in our hands.

The results shows that hydroponics is better in following  aspects :

1. Chemical free growth as no pesticides were used .

2. Healthy outputs as nutrient contents with pH balance are maintained.

3. Faster growth as the plants can make more food.

4. Extremely price-friendly in order to make sure that it can be affordable to all.

5. No dependence on climate changes.

6. No dependence on soil quality so suitable for apartment and for growing own food in the city environment.

7. Customisation with highly flexible application design which has theoretically unlimited utilisations and configurations to suit anyone's needs.

8. High level of redundancy in the design of the solution and fail safe to prevent your Farm from going offline.

9.  As per observations and an event the system can support the plants for a week on a complete power cut with laws of few days of growth for recovering from this kind of event.

10. All year around sustainability of the farm because of the above mentioned non dependency on climate changes.

11. Less water wastage as the plants are utilising efficiently upto 97% of the water given to them as compared to the low 13% of Traditional farming.

Hydroponics is the core technology powering our solution. Hydroponics is a subset of horticulture, the method of growing plants without soil using mineral nutrient solutions in a water solvent. Terrestrial Plants may be grown with only the roots exposed to the mineral solution, and the roots may be supported by an inter-media such as Perlite Mix,  Coco Peat or any other kind of hydroponics media. The nutrient in hydroponics can come from an array of different sources. We have utilised  open source software to run a custom server with a separate network which could be tied into your Local Network. This allows for the system to function without internet access while using an IOT platform with the customised GUI which can be modified as per the users requirement. The system is designed to scale and has the same IOT-based electronics for the the commercial as well as home use. Only difference between the commercial and the home solution is that it allows for multiple of controllers to be connected up together and placed in very remote places while being tied to the same Local Network. The commercial solution can have multiple controllers tied together to function as a single controller. Each system micro-controller can handle theoretically unlimited farming area with low impact on your electricity bill as a system is made to be as efficient as charging your phone (15 watts).

Hydroponics is proved to have several advantages over soil gardening. The growth rate on a hydroponic plant is 30-50 percent faster than a soil plant, grown under the same conditions. The yield of the plant is also greater. The plant then uses this saved energy to grow faster and to produce more fruits. Hydroponic plants also have fewer problems with bug infestations, funguses and disease. In general, plants grown hydroponically are healthier and happier plants. Scientists believe that there are several reasons for the drastic differences between hydroponic and soil plants. The extra oxygen in the hydroponic growing mediums helps to stimulate root growth. Plants with ample oxygen in the root system also absorb nutrients faster. The nutrients in a hydroponic system are mixed with the water and sent directly to the root system. The plant does not have to search in the soil for the nutrients that it requires.

For understanding the theory of change we first need to understand what is the basic idea we are trying to present. Our idea is using hydroponics to grow organic food. Now that we have a gist of the idea, we can talk about how can we bring change in the lives of the people? For that we need to understand what all problem we are tackling by this.        

• First is the problem of SOIL, how? We use soil in today's time as it is considered as the only medium to grow plants by the majority population, but this is not true as by using hydroponics we can get 97% efficient crop growth as compared to 13 to 14% in soil, plus it also eliminates the risk of crop failure by pest rains etc. as it is indoors.

• Second is the problem of HYV seeds, pesticides, fertilisers etc. as this would not use and it would bring a change in the health of the people by eliminating the risk of many health diseases caused by HYV and fertilisers.

• Third is the problem of soil erosion and the fertility of the soil so we are not using any kind of soil or dust we are just full filling the needs of plants by just using water and adding all the nutrients required in the water itself.

We are targeting urban cities because our idea has two effects long term and short term:

• First the short term is that the build cost of this is very affordable and the installation is very simple so that is the reason why this will attract many people.

• Second is the long term goals which includes the maintenance of the machine and we can proudly say that is has a very low maintenance cost so in a long run.

As we came up with this idea in the recent time, so we are having 4 families that are using this idea which are the families of our team members. This is being done as a part of our testing procedure. We were not able to expand this idea because of the current Sars-CoV-2 pandemic situation . But once all this is over we will try to get financial aid for the same, we are planning to spread our idea in our neighbourhood and this would have already been achieved if it was not for the corona virus. But now we can achieve it within a year after this pandemic is controlled, we are aiming of spreading our network and sales in a city within the next year and in the next five years we are pretty sure that we would be able to take our project nation-wide with hundred thousands satisfied customers.

Currently keeping in mind that our idea is a prototype it does not serve anyone. But also keeping in mind the vast potential for growth in the primary sector of the economy (developing countries) we are confident that given the required resources and financial aid we will be able to expand in two directions the HOME DECORATION and LARGE-SCALE food production. In the next one year we will we able to serve 100’s if not 1000’s. The reason behind such a small number is that it takes time to come up with an idea like this but it takes people even more time to adapt to that idea. But once people start using this then would find it much efficient and cheap so within 5 years we are sure that we will be serving thousands of people in the urban cities to grow crops and vegetables in a comparatively small space and eliminating the risk of crop failures  and also common people by providing them with real kitchen gardens for a compact space. This idea also promotes roof top farming. We would also like to approach the government of our country which can help us provide our product nation-wide in the next 5 to 7 years.

Requirements of funds for the following expenditures is estimated in one year and subsequent 5 years:

• One year: Building an easily installable/ aesthetically appealing system at user homes that even a layman can and is willing to deploy.

• Five years: Manufacturing and procurements of components described in earlier sections.

• Marketing and branding the solution so that customer trust is created. Funding the marketing so that maximum output is received for minimum investment is the key challenge. A startup is not plush with extra funds like corporates, yet every b2c business needs marketing. 

• Competition from local cheap solutions that flood the market for any products.

• Quality control since outsourcing would need to be done at various levels

• Scale up challenges. Given our goals the solution as we expect would require time, effort and money. We would need to balance it with our studies and investment capability as a student. 

• We are working on aesthetics and automation. We would be doing market survey and onsite customer feedback. We would partner with experts like interior designers, architects who know the requirements and can even help market and have it set up when homes and apartments are created in a customized manner. This would need iterations and implementation of the feedbacks. Since it’s the user homes, we are targeting suitability of the hydroponics adding to customers home aesthetics as a key factor. Right now, a lot of improvement is needed on this aspect.

•  For initial branding we plan to be take it to exhibitions and use media covering startups. Low cost word of mouth marketing and digital marketing are more affordable and provide better value.  We plan to use our customers as our brand ambassadors and referral discounts is something which we think would help low cost driving of business. For initial scaling up we plan to use frameworks of existing marketplaces like amazon/flipkart where we would not have to bother about infrastructure and logistics and more on quality product creation and digital marketing. 

• For quality control any outsourcing would only start happening when we have resources and team. We would even at the cost of profitability try to strictly monitor ourselves.

•  Cheap local solutions generally do not sustain due to quality so maintaining high quality and branding is part of the solution. Other way we plan to tackle this is by cost control and balancing it without compromising quality/aesthetics. 

  
  

We are a just startup at the time with 4 people working on the same. Them being:-

1. Archit Goyal (Chief Executive Office)

2. Saarthak Sharma (Chief Operating Office)

3. Divyansh Agarwal (Chief Financial Officer)

4. Ayush Mantri (President of Marketing)

As we have recently achieved success with our prototype we will start the production and processes of advertisement this year itself (Once the present pandemic situation becomes better). In order to do so we will definitely be expanding our team and also taking external help, but the founding members will remain the same.

We consider ourselves to be in the prime position to deliver this solution for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, this solution had been made around three years ago and since then, a lot of research and further development has been done. The time spent in research and development has turned this solution into something of which we now have the expertise of and something which we all can rely upon. This makes spreading our solution easy for us. Also all we have dedication for the project and mutual respect for all the teammates. This makes working cohesively on our team easy for us. Also, we all have divided our work in such a way that we would able to spread this solution effectively. Saarthak Sharma takes care of the Research and Development of this project with his scientific mind while Archit Goyal looks after the overall functioning of the project with his impeccable management skills. Divyansh Agrawal looks after the organizational task and ensures that all processes of the project are carried out properly with his extraordinary organizational skills. Ayush Mantri with his creative mindset takes care of all the technological processes and tasks and contributes to the organization and functioning of the project. This along with team dedication and mutual respect has helped us get well along on the team, helping us to try and broadcast our vision and solution in front of a large audience.

We are not partnering with any organisations at the time. We are approaching companies and will definitely partner with several organisations in the near future.

Our venture presently is a B2C company which will start providing services to individuals this year. Our target audience currently are the urban dwellers as our product enables people to carry out the task of agriculture without the requirement of fertile soil, making it perfect for urban or city people to do the same either inside their houses or on the rooftops. Our product has been made pocket-friendly to ensure larger sales and affordability by all. The cost of making the product to us ranges from 30 to 150 Dollars depending upon the size and requirements of the consumer. We are going to sell the products at a profit percentage ranging from 12-15% depending upon quantity and model. We believe that with our current statistics and are future plans of expanding the company, our product has huge potential of becoming a market hit. In the future we are going to expand our services and sales to huge organisations and are also planning to reach to the government of the country as we believe our product, as mentioned earlier by us, is not only for a hobby but according to our predictions will become a neccessity in the future to meet with the global food demand. We have come up with pragmatic and practical goals for us to achieve and not just unrealistic targets which will ensure our success.

We are applying to solve because we believe that our idea can be life changing for many people in many ways which are as follows:

• First the change for a small-scale producer, lets talk about a home in urban cities, so this machine enables them to produce food in a very compact space and in a very efficient manner.

• Second is the carbon emission, this machine is a carbon neutral machine. And the fact that it can also be stacked means that it can produce more and more in very compact place as we can build a layer on top of another.

• Third, it also has a water recycling system which can use the same water more than 3 times saving a lot of water and preventing a fall in water table.

• Fourth is the chances of losses and crop failure that it eliminates the as it is an indoor fully automated system which can grow food on its own if human assistance is not provided. Also, it can function completely for a week in case of power failure.

• Fifth we can produce completely organic food and help us to prevent the loss of nutrients, preventing many diseases caused by using excess of fertilisers and pesticides.

The idea of our project is one, on which we have been working for many years. Now that we have actually come up with a successfully working prototype we are going to take this to the public. For the same we would require monetary resources for the production of our device and other expenses, as well as agencies who will aid us in the processes of marketing and advertisements. We believe that with the right partners we will be able to spread our production throughout the nation in the upcoming years and if possible we will also sell our product internationally one day. As the product is ready, our focus will be mostly be on the advertisement process now along with the manufacturing, making people aware why our product is not something just for showcase, but also a necessity of the future.

At the time, we are planning to approach the following to partner with:

• Architects/Interior Designers who will be able to market and get a perspective aesthetically of how the hydroponic system can be created in a way, to make them suitable and beautiful enough to be displayed as showpieces.

• Digital Marketing and Sales: For internet-based strategy and proliferation.

• Manufacturing organization: Low cost scalable manufacturing for increased production. 

We as a team strongly believe in the saying that a creator may die but an idea lives for ever. This means, we want to make a machine that people would but not only use for its uniqueness but also for its usefulness. We believe that the idea for hydroponics has the potential to impact the lives of hundred thousands as this idea targets nearly every person whether it be a common man who uses it for personal use such as a decoration(kitchen garden) or be it a farmer or an organization who uses it for production of food on a large scale.

For the same we need a lot of financial aid as we are high school students. And if we get the grant so we will be able to increase our production so we can reach out to a wider population.

This idea is also very important keeping in mind that the future situation according to UN till 2100 the population will rise to 11.2 billion this would mean further reduction of agricultural land to make more and more residential areas so all the fertile land would be used up for the same leaving us with no fertile land or very less fertile land for growing crops, so here the stackability benefit of our product comes into play along with no soil requirement and adding to this, the food growth will not require any pesticides or fertilisers as we have an organic blend to fulfil the same.

The time is here that we make changes to our traditional way of farming before it is too late.

Now the time has come that we make the impossible possible.