August 2023 Edition
30,287 copies distributed monthly – to every rural mailbox in Canterbury and the West Coast for over 25 years
INSIDE
THIS EDITION Next gen trio
p3 Innovation award
p19 Coccidiosis caution Systems go: Landlogic CEO Alan Cottington overseeing the installation of a vertical farming system in an Ashburton warehouse.
p28 Dairy resilience
Vertical farming system to be showcased in Canterbury
A mechanised growing system with the potential to improve New Zealand’s food production security will be set up in Ashburton by the end of August, with planting to commence early September.
] by Kent Caddick
p32
It will be the first opportunity for New Zealand horticulturalists to see a full-sized Vertical Farm Systems XA Series (VFS) growing system in operation, courtesy of the New Zealand supplier, Landlogic. The Ashburton set-up is a Landlogic initiative to showcase what a vertical food production system can do. VFS is a modular system
designed for warehouse installation with plants grown in multilevel trays contained in climate and light-controlled cells. Landlogic CEO Alan Cottington said the fully automated vertical growing system offers an important alternative to producing commercial levels of leafy greens in the horticultural industry, where traditional outdoor growing systems have taken such a huge hit in recent floods and storms.
“The increasing unpredictability and frequency of severe weather events, attributed to global warming, along with the rising costs impacting traditional open-field farming, mean it’s more important than ever to consider new approaches to sustainable agriculture,” Cottington said.
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