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Aponic International Development Page

Our aim was to develop a product that could optimise the profitability of farming. This is a challenging task due to the variability of supply and demand, the rapid changes in climate and soil conditions, the erratic rainfall patterns, and the socio-political disruptions caused by wars, policies and pandemics. Traditional agriculture is subject to many uncertainties and risks that affect its economic viability.

We devised a farming system that could minimise the uncertainties and risks by having linear inputs, consistent outputs and predictable outcomes. This would enable farmers to generate income every year from their crops.

Our system is based on vertical farming, which is the practice of growing plants in stacked layers or modules, using artificial lighting and controlled environment. Vertical farming has several advantages over conventional farming, such as:

  • Reducing land and water use
  • Increasing crop yield and quality
  • Enhancing food security and resilience
  • Lowering environmental impact and carbon footprint

However, vertical farming also faces some challenges, such as:

  • High capital costs (Capex)
  • High operational costs (Energy)
  • Skills gap (Lack of trained personnel)

We have overcome these challenges by collaborating with some of the leading institutions in the UK, such as Innovate UK, NIAB, Anglia Ruskin, Essex University, John Innes Centre and many more. They have provided us with expertise and guidance in various aspects of our system, such as science, engineering, finance and horticulture. We have also received numerous awards and recognition for our innovation and sustainability.

Our system uses aeroponics, which is a subset of hydroponics that involves growing plants without soil, using a fine mist of nutrient solution to deliver oxygen and water directly to the roots. Aeroponics has several benefits over other hydroponic methods, such as:

  • Reducing water and nutrient consumption
  • Preventing root diseases and pests
  • Improving root growth and plant health
  • Facilitating harvesting and transplanting

We manufacture our product in the UK, using local suppliers within 30 miles of our location. We adhere to our principles of providing and maintaining the best value for money on the market without compromising on quality or performance. Our smart design reduces the costs of production, storage, delivery and installation, and we pass on these savings to our customers. Our fully controlled environment turn-key farm installations can cost as little as £1500 per square metre, while our competitors charge £6500 per square metre for similar systems.

Our system can operate off grid anywhere in the world using daylight, one solar panel, a car battery and a bucket of water a week. For more sophisticated controlled environment farms, lighting is the major factor that affects the profit margins. However, our system uses less power than any other system on the market that we know of even for lighting thanks to its incredibly efficient design and workflow systems. This optimises your energy expenditure and makes renewable power a feasible option.

We offer courses that can train people from absolute beginner to farm ready and beyond with collaborations with universities to create recognised qualifications. This ensures that we produce qualified personnel who can run resilient supply chains.

Below are the criteria we take into account in all of our products.

Capital Outlay

We have always been passionate about sustainable farming and truly sustainable food, but we know that these ideas don’t last unless they are built on a truly sustainable business model. With this in mind we have gone about reducing the capital outlay of vertical farming to the point that we can install a controlled environment farm for as little as £1500 per sqM compared to £6500+ per sqM of other farming solutions.

This enables everyone to become a food producer either to feed a family, business, community or corporation without being saddled with huge debt on day one and produce predictable and consistent food 365 days a year in the best possible growing environment without worrying about soil conditions, drought, seasons or other variables that just cost money.

Energy Usage

We have made it our goal to use as little energy as possible to run our farms so that they are affordable to run and can work off-grid, anywhere in the world. Even when we are running in a completely enclosed and controlled environment, our design needs less energy input into lighting as being a true vertical system lets the plants grow more freely and are easier to light for deep canopy penetration for as lower wattage requirement as possible.

Full Time Production

Food production can now be run as a year round operation rather than spurts of high activity at the mercy of the seasons. This means you can build a full time local work team rather than seasonal labour. This benefits local economies and makes your life less stressful.

This eliminates worries about climate, seasons, droughts, herbicides and other agro-chemicals, fuel prices etc, as there are less variables to worry about in a controlled or semi controlled environment.

The Aponic International system needs 95% less water than soil grown crops, uses renewable power in ways that are easily generated on the farm or nearby, there is no herbicide used, pesticide is absolutely minimal in controlled environments, and by supplying local outlets and businesses, profit margins are increased, food miles are reduced.

It also means that there is a controllable, constant profit stream coming into the farms that is scalable and regular.

Resilient Supply Chains

This all adds up to a farming system that gives regular income, creates clean, predictable, consistent fresh produce that lasts longer and tastes better than other mass produced offerings. This sort of farming pays for itself and keeps happy customers coming back.

This is a system that fulfils climate legislation without losing the essence of farming and delivers food to fill the UK’s fresh produce deficit of £9.8 billion.

Sustainability

The system is designed to meet climate legislation and still create a better product for the consumer and the farmer. The energy requirement is lower, the water usage is minimal, the fertiliser usage is minimal and in a recycling system, there is no run-off to effect biodiversity, production is higher and predictable and as the crops are grown in a rich nutrient with all minerals and trace elements supplied in the correct ratios, the food is better quality and richer in nutritional value.

Aponic International produces crops that costs less to the end user, and the environment, yet are abundant and profitable which adds up to real and demonstrable sustainability and not just another word salad.

Diversification

Aponic International offers true core market diversification to farmers which enables them to turn unused barn space into a full time profit centre on the farm. We offer a full turnkey conversion from covered barn into state of the art controlled environment farming space to utilise their core skills in growing food, pharmaceuticals and raw materials such as cotton and hemp. We use Passive Haus technology in a modular refit which does not affect the structure so medieval barns can be used to create high tech food.

These spaces are also valuable to the community as training areas for schools, colleges and universities and also as rehab environments.