Plantagon.com
Plantagon International is the global innovation leader in the sector urban agriculture. Plantagon’s resilient food systems minimize the need for land, water, energy and pesticides. The environmental impact is very low, and if the products are delivered directly to consumers in the city, the transportation costs are also minimized.
The Plantagon concept is simple and appealing: fresh, local vegetables delivered daily directly to consumers. No middle hands, no yesterday’s food.
BUSINESS CONCEPT
We develop innovative solutions to meet the rising demand for locally grown food in cities all around the world. We minimize the use of transportation, land, energy and water – using waste products in the process but leaving no waste behind.
The necessary components for green food production are found in flows of urban resources as nutrients, water, CO2 and energy in heating, certainly in cities.
Without photosynthesis there is no life. The cyclic processes behind photosynthesis are an important link between humans and the technical systems that deliver services in cities (waste water treatment, heating, waste handling, energy production etc.). Therefore urban agriculture (UA) is a solution as long as people are urban. As modern people we must strive to find good solutions in food production that use synergies in the hinterland between technology and everyday life. In urban agriculture as well as in rural area based businesses there are too many uncontrolled flows of endless resources. One of all problems in our modern society is “peak phosphorous” that points out the need of solutions that capture phosphorous before entering rivers and seas. Phosphorous is not endless. Urban agriculture close to urban resources can integrate production to these flows of resources. Only the possibility to use these locally produced nutrients is a reason for UA by itself.
Food has been an urban product since long. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimated that UA delivers up to one fifth of the food produced today. UA is more than just old habits following farmers as they migrate into urban areas, UA can emerge wherever there are needs. For city planners that do not understand the link between the resources (energy, water, sunlight, carbon etc.) urban agriculture and livestock keeping it is easy to stop developing UA. Farming in general has been considered as a risks factor. Therefore planners argue that unsolved questions on e.g. dangerous bacteria, different zoonosis or the leakage of nutrients imply an advantage to rural (far away from cities) agriculture. These short notes below try to capture the arguments behind Urban Agriculture as a phenomena and Plantagon as the Solution making its way through an ever-increasing urban market, as that is where people live.