Notes from a visit to Infarm Berlin, a place for innovation in indoor farming technology and design which defines itself as a food start-up, and in addition, a charming place acting as a bubble of futurism.

The place, which acts as a cafe, event venue, system and software hub, material and wood workshop, microgreen farm and meeting place, keeps its experimental and productive feel also after 3 years of activity. The company was founded by Erez, Guy and Osnat, designers-entrepreneurs-chefs from Israel wishing to expand the lomits of ability and public awareness towards growing food in the city, in closed spaces and actually anywhere. Infarm develop tools to simplify hydroponic agriculture under monitored conditions of irrigation, nutrients, artificial LED lighting, They do so through experiments, tastings and collaborations with chefs, industrial designers, architects, scientists and programmers.

Future projects include planning and installing local growing elements within a supermarket chain, transforming urban spaces to productive or educational growing farms in Berlin and Paris, developing marketing channels for home growing microgreen gardens which started-off in a successful kickstarter campaign, and the flagship project – a modular growing system with a complimentary app-based control and monitoring platform – all the required building blocks and know-how for the professional or domestic urban farmer.

Infarm’s financial model is based on income from projects or events and external investors, while the organizational model is a business – management and department managers – R&D, workshop, kitchen and events, and business development. The place hosts interns, volunteers and freelancers involved in projects.

Infarm dive deep into complex questions and in their daily work, in addition to creating inspiring projects, create raw thinking substances required to begin forming answers to philosophical-ecological-nutritional questions occupying humanity’s interests:

how will relationships between man and nature look in the future?  /  is it natural to grow food this way? what is ‘natural’ in a modern, dense, industrialized world?  /  is the social value of their work limited to empowering people to grow their own food, or are there more faces to it?  /  how does the will for public visibility and urban transformation settle with a framework of activity with private clients?  /  will future agriculture in our overcrowded planet look like this, or is it the ultimate separation between man and earth, a post-organic technology to grow food without sun, soil or human touch?  /  will communal and educational potential in urban agriculture come as an added value to commercial success, or are there ways to treat community as an engine towards progress?  /  what is the right balance between developing secret commercial patents on one side, and developing open-source design enabling hacking and crowdsourced knowledge?  /  when does collaborating with corporations counts as greenwash and Public relations manouver, and when does such action construct a platform to spread knowledge to wide crowds?

the company’s website >

photos: Robert Ungar / Infarm website