{"id":364190,"date":"2017-03-21T02:30:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T06:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grist.org\/?post_type=grist-50-profiles&amp;p=364190"},"modified":"2017-03-21T02:30:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T06:30:21","slug":"tom-colicchio-irving-fain","status":"publish","type":"grist-50-profiles","link":"https:\/\/grist.org\/grist-50\/profile\/tom-colicchio-irving-fain\/","title":{"rendered":"Agriculture sucks up too much water and energy. Irving Fain uses AI to make farming more efficient."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"g50-profile__stats-block profile__stats-block--profile-364190 \">Cofounder &amp; CEO, Bowery Farming<br \/>\nKearny, New Jersey<br \/>\nAge: 37<\/aside>\n<p>As a kid, Irving Fain started small neighborhood businesses (snow shoveling, leaf raking). He later tapped that entrepreneurial spirit to launch CrowdTwist, a marketing startup. Now, Fain wants to bring cooler technology to agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>Fain\u2019s company, Bowery Farming, uses artificial intelligence to streamline the growing process. (Full disclosure: Tom Colicchio, who nominated Fain for the Grist 50, isn\u2019t just a fan; he\u2019s an investor.)<\/p>\n<p>[pullquote image=&#8221;363926&#8243; cite=&#8221;Tom Colicchio, chef &amp; sustainable food advocate&#8221;]\u201cNot only does Bowery use 95 percent less water than traditional agriculture, but they use absolutely no pesticides whatsoever; add in the fact that all of their produce travels less than 10 miles to the end consumer and you begin to clearly see the environmental benefits.\u201d [\/pullquote]<\/p>\n<p>Bowery\u2019s indoor, vertical farm uses a huge network of sensors to measure crop health. This technology is \u201cthe central nervous system of the farm,\u201d says Fain, and adjusts how much water, LED light, and nutrients plants get. With that level of precision, Bowery can grow a lot more food on a lot less land without using pesticides.<\/p>\n<p>Bowery\u2019s leafy greens are currently sold at three Whole Foods locations and to a handful of restaurants, all in the New York metro area. Although there are growing fears in the United States about robots stealing jobs, Fain points out that demand outpaces supply for organic greens, and then there\u2019s, well, those booming city populations. Bowery hopes to expand across the country and world (having a certain Top Chef judge as an advocate and adviser certainly won\u2019t hurt). And, at $3.49 a box, robot kale is surprisingly digestible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This farmer uses AI for efficiency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57007830,"featured_media":490294,"menu_order":40,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"coauthors":[10],"class_list":["post-364190","grist-50-profiles","type-grist-50-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","grist-50-food","grist-50-13","grist-50-nominated"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Agriculture sucks up too much water and energy. Irving Fain uses AI to make farming more efficient. - Grist 50<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Agriculture sucks up too much water and energy. 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