“We will disrupt the industry”, “we will empower people”, “we will even end world hunger!” are all usually empty startup mantras as ubiquitous as the drone of millions of Powerpoint presentations. When a startup comes along remotely capable of any such feats, they are usually unspoken and so it is with
Sustainable Microfarms, a company that is disruptive, empowering and may have a hand in ending world hunger. Sustainable Microfarms is a hydroponics startup that is taking a systemic approach to disrupting while simultaneously empowering the agriculture industry and all the players involved. They are starting with a small but passionate consumer market, the urban hydroponic farmer. To say that Sustainable Microfarms is another hydroponics company is to say that Tesla is just another electric car. They have developed new technology (the Genesis Controller) that automatically monitors plants 24/7 and takes the required actions to maximize health and growth. It is an ingenious system that monitors, pH, nutrient levels, temperature and electrical conductivity, then delivers doses of pH and nutrients in the most effective amounts at the most effective times of the day, for each type of plant.
The secret sauce is that the Genesis Controller technology dramatically improves results, cuts costs and increases revenues while using far less resources, especially water. When you think about that and how this is a solution that is also not bound by geography, soil or weather conditions, you realize the global impact that is possible (yes, that ending world hunger idea does not seem so far fetched now). As COO Alice Zhang told me over a hand-crafted coffee at a cafe in Berkeley last week “We are hungry, passionate, and setting out to disrupt a space that’s thousands of years old and in desperate need of sustainable innovation to reverse the negative effects of Agriculture 2.0″. Strategically it is going to be interesting to see how the company’s product line develops and the partnerships evolve as both the tech and agriculture industries take notice, and they will. Disruptive? Check. Empowering? Check. End world hunger? There is new hope. Sanjay’s final comment to me was perhaps his most profound on multiple levels, “When I am an old man, I’d like to make sure that when kids hear the word ‘apple’ they think of fruit.”
