Automated Vertical Indoor Farming Set to Sprout

Automated Vertical Indoo

By Greg Nichol

A FINISH STARTUP HAS been climbing the walls during the pandemic. At least the crops it helps grow in vertical gardens have been, including greens, berries, and vegetables in areas like the Middle East.

Vertical farming, which utilizes vertically-stacked layers of crops grown in climate-controlled facilities, utilizes signifi cantly less water and soil than traditional agriculture. Increasingly we're seeing examples of the concept scaling to industriallevels, which is good news with populations booming, arable land in ever-shorter supply, and waning interest in agriculture among city-bound youth. iFarm (https://ifarm.fi /about) has fi gured out a smart value proposition in the still-nascent market as a developer of vertical farm management technology, essentially an operating system that utilizes tremendous volumes of sensor data to fi ne tune automated crop growing. The company believes it's entering a market primed for steep growth. "Investors can participate in the worldwide network of vertical farms and receive a rate of return well above bank deposit rates.", says Alex Lyskovsky, co-founder and President of iFarm. "We already have a group of fi nancial partners involved in the development of our farms, and now there is a direct opportunity for this type of investment in Finland, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Russia and UAE."

One of the interesting advantages of vertical farming, particularly in a pandemic when so many professional spaces stand empty, is that it's

possible to utilize the urban environment to

facilitate crop growing. By growing crops closer to city dwellers, the company can off er logistics effi ciencies and unparalleled freshness.

This at a time when traditional farming is less and less viable. Global agricultural productivity is suddenly slowing for the fi rst time in decades. No one is quite sure why, but it's likely a systemic problem related to the rise of monocultures and the overuse of fertilizers, which add harmful salts to soils. Farmers are also aging globally as younger generations migrate to cities. That's largely because a productivity boom over the last century has kept food prices low, which makes farming unattractive economically. It's a double whammy now that that productivity can no longer be taken for granted without major rethinks to the food supply chain.

Vertical farming and other smart agriculture innovations may off er realistic alternatives, and they've captured imaginations due to novel use of space and cutting edge technologies. iFarm's Growtune tech platform (https://ifarm.fi / technologies#software) allows growers to leverage technologies like computer vision, machine learning, and huge volumes of data data. The system can enable farming operations to spread vertical farms across distributed networks while still maintaining centralized control. And if there's any doubt that farming has changed, the level of control is staggering. The Growtune platform can determine the plant's weight, as well as growth deviations or pathologies, and build a system that improves crop quality and characteristics on its own. According to iFarm, the optimization will reduce labor costs for crops like strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, radish, and others. "The 2020 pandemic exposed the problems of the global food system – food supplies, sowing and harvesting were disrupted across the globe", says Mikhail Taver, Managing Partner at Gagarin Capital. "iFarm is taking a novel approach to agriculture, off ering an automated solution to grow crops close to the consumer and ensure food security. We believe that the future of the

or Farming Set to Sprout

ls for Robotics

food market lies in modern technologies and are excited to support the project on its way." www.zdnet.com/article/automated-vertical-indoorfarming-starts-to-sprout/?ftag=TRE6a12a91&bhid =22879832233920783794305160720838&mid=1 2998334&cid=716490739

Wealthy Nigerians are Buying up Passports for Cash from Caribbean Nations to Beat Visa Rules

By Yomi Kazeem

A YEAR AGO, THE offi ce of Citizenship by Investment Program (CIP) in the small Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia had received no applications from any Africans in its nearly fi ve years of operations.

But in the past few months, it has issued up to 60 passports to Nigerians and is reporting steady increases in applications from the country—still its sole African market.

That sharp rise refl ects spiking demand among Nigeria’s wealthy private citizens who are increasingly tapping into “investment migration” programs off ered by foreign countries. The programs allow foreign nationals to obtain fasttracked citizenship and passports or permanent residency permits in exchange for specifi ed amounts of cash investments. The payment for the passports can come in form of direct “contributions” to the development funds set up by the national governments or through investment in real estate projects which off er the promise of not just passports but also possible profi ts.

With around 40,000 passports believed to have been issued through investment migration programs globally, citizenship by investment is now estimated to be a $3 billion industry. It is often favored by high-net worth individuals from countries with “weak” passports often from countries in

sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern

countries.

“What you have is a community of wealthy individuals who cannot travel without visas.”

Henley & Partners (www.henleyglobal.com), the world’s largest investment migration consultancy, has also set up shop in Africa’s largest economy after seeing a sharp rise in demand from the country over the past three years. The offi ce in Lagos is only Henley & Partners’ third in Africa, in addition to offi ces in Cape Town and Johannesburg opened six years ago.

“The reason we opened in Nigeria is because we saw signifi cant potential in the market with growth in private wealth without global mobility for high net worth individuals,” says Paddy Blewer, public relations director at Henley & Partners. “What you have is a community of wealthy individuals who cannot travel without visas.”

That reality is best captured by the weakness of Nigeria’s international passport. In fact, Nigerian passport holders can visit two fewer countries now than they could in 2010 without fi rst obtaining a visa. The country also suff ered the worst decline in passport power over the past decade, according to rankings on the annual Henley Passport Index.

But even paperwork-intensive visa application processes have also gotten more complicated for Nigerians. Under the Trump administration, for example, US visa application fees for Nigerian applicants have been increased, an interview waiver process for visa renewals for frequent travelers has been indefi nitely suspended while a ban has also been placed on issuing immigrant visas to Nigerians. The net eff ect of these restrictions resulted in Nigeria recording the largest global drop-off in visitors to the US last year.

In search of improved international mobility, investment migration programs by Caribbean nations off er wealthy Nigerians and other citizens a legal and established workaround that ticks two crucial boxes: price point and access.

For instance, St. Lucia’s lowest-priced program, a “contribution to the national economic fund,” costs $100,000 for individuals and $140,000 for a family of four, as well as $15,000 for each additional family

member. “That pricing model has really resonated well with the Nigerian community,” says Nestor Alfred, chief executive of St. Lucia’s CIP offi ce. “A lot of our Nigerian applications consist of families.”

Other Caribbean islands including Dominica as well as St. Kitts and Nevis also off er investment migration programs with minimum costs of $100,000 and $150,000 respectively, a lot less than similar European programs typically cost. The US program issues permanent residence permits in exchange for investment ranging from $500,000 to $1 million.

But in addition to relative aff ordability, passports of Caribbean island nations also rank much higher than Nigeria’s on a global scale. For instance, St. Lucia passport holders have visa-free and visa-onarrival access to 145 countries—more than triple Nigeria’s fi gure. And for extra context, St. Lucia passport holders’ visa free access allows them into the entire European 26-country “Schengen” area, the UK, and Switzerland.

Taking it up

With Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy battered by the pandemic and set for its worst recession in three decades, there are few indications interest in investment migration from Nigeria will slow down.

Nigeria and South Africa dominate demand from Africa and currently account for 85% of Henley & Partners’ business on the continent, with Nigeria growing rapidly with an interest in Caribbean-based citizenship programs.

That momentum will likely remain fueled by Nigeria’s super-wealthy with the country’s population of people with a net worth of more than $30 million— currently at 724 people—forecast to grow by 13% in the next fi ve years.

But as it turns out, interest in emigration is not restricted to Nigeria’s super-wealthy alone. Over the past three years, middle-class Nigerians have also increasingly emigrated through skill-based

programs off ering legal pathways to residency

and citizenship in Canada and Australia. In the last fi ve years alone, the number of Nigerian immigrants issued permanent resident permits in Canada has tripled.

One distinction however is that high net-worth individuals who have earned most of their wealth locally are typically simply looking to boost their mobility options rather than permanently relocate. “What we’re dealing with people whose businesses and largely their wealth is derived from Nigerian investment—they’re not going to leave permanently,” says Blewer. “This is about being able to go where they want at the drop of a hat. It’s not about leaving Lagos.”

Double-checking

For tourism-based economies in the Caribbeans, investment migration programs off er a signifi cant alternative to receiving foreign direct investment. And as recent history shows, with the Covid-19 pandemic paralyzing global travel and tourism, the revenue diversifi cation opportunities these programs off er can prove vital. Indeed, after Hurricane Maria devastated Dominica in 2017, the government sought to shore up tourism defi cits by reducing some of its processing fees to make its investment migration programs more attractive and in turn, provide much-needed funds to rebuild and boost the local economy.

But Dominica has also been caught in the crosshairs of a corruption scandal involving its passports program. Last year, an Al Jazeera investigation (www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Yba1-ijh4) showed high-powered offi cials involved in brokering transactions to sell diplomatic passports to foreign business people suspected of corrupt dealings.

The scrutiny from such scandals amplify why investment migration programs claim to place a premium on due diligence. Even though it’s not legally required to, Henley & Partners says it carries out client verifi cation processes, covering sources of wealth, and criminal history.

“We’re not interested in persons involved in military, government offi cials, or politically exposed persons. Our interest is more in executives and young professionals,” Alfred tells Quartz Africa. As such, the increased applications from Nigeria being primarily from private business executives across sectors, including banking, is ideal for St. Lucia because “it’s easier for us to determine the source of funds,” Alfred says. https://qz.com/africa/1895878/nigerias-wealthyuse-henley-in-caribbean-passports-for-cashplan/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=dailybrief&utm_content=9601072 Image credit: caribbean-citenzenship.info/Passport