Finnish startup, NPHarvest has raised US$2.2mn to take its proprietary nutrient catcher machine to the market

While nutrient fertilisers are essential for securing food production, excessive amounts of fertilisers—particularly nitrogen and phosphorus—which end up in the environment through wastewater or nutrient leaching from agricultural areas, pollute the ground and cause eutrophication in seas and lakes. This in turn causes an overgrowth of algae and weeds, especially toxic blue-green algae, which depletes oxygen and is a threat to animal life. Overaccumulation of nutrients might also result in nutrient deficiencies in plants. 

NPHarvest's nutrient catcher which is installed in wastewater management systems, enables the separation and collection of excess nutrients from concentrated wastewaters. These can then be recycled and sold back to the fertiliser industry, thus making businesses more profitable, mitigating eutrophication and enhancing local food security. The hardware can catch up to 90% of the excess but valuable nutrients from wastewater. Once the technology has separated the nutrients, they can be taken back to the fertiliser companies. NPHarvest’s process also uses very little energy, as it does not require heating or pressure increase, thereby reducing the costs of the process even further.

The new funding will allow NPHarvest to build the first commercially ready nutrient catcher, ready to be installed in their clients’ facilities. Moreover, by keeping the production costs as low as possible, the nutrient catcher can scale to different use cases and fit different facilities, thanks to the process' modular design. 

“No one has done nutrient catching on a real commercial level, which made us as foodtech investors impressed with NPHarvest and its unique technology," said Mika Kukkurainen, partner at Nordic Foodtech VC. "Ensuring food security while protecting the environment is one of the top priorities in the food system. NPHarvest´s technology has what it takes to combine these aspects in a very interesting business model.”  

Development engineer of Swedish NSVA, Northwest Skåne Water and Wastewater, Hamse Kjerstadius also stated that NPHarvest’s technology for nitrogen and phosphorus recovery had the potential to allow increased nutrient recovery from wastewater. This was seen as a promising method that could aid municipalities in reaching reduced climate impacts.

For more information, visit: http://npharvest.fi/

WWF in partnership with the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), has launched the new Global Farm Loss tool, enabling growers of all sizes to measure and report on-farm food loss with ease and accuracy

By providing actionable insights, the tool enables growers and buyers to map their current loss levels and develop new channels to utilise more of what is grown. The tool—which can be used for all crops, particularly fruits, vegetables and tree nuts—is capable of estimating the surplus left behind in-field post-harvest and at further stages across a farm’s operations. Apart from being user-friendly, the platform provides a simplified approach to help farmers and their buyers identify and address the cause of their on-farm food loss and its associated impacts, such as scope 3 emissions.

“We need visibility to identify food loss hotspots and understand the reason behind them,” said senior director of Food Loss and Waste at WWF, Pete Pearson. “The Global Farm Loss Tool is designed to be part of that solution, helping fill the crucial gap of tracking primary and actionable food loss data at the farm level of global supply chains.”

With adequate support from the CGF, the tool has also been beta tested through the Food Waste Coalition, which is closely aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 and aims to halve global food loss and waste by 2030. Working with Coalition members, the CGF and WWF will continue to assess the impact of the new tool, reviewing how to improve the tool’s user experience, expand its utility in the field and for more food types across the global supply chain, and promote its usage to new growers and suppliers.

Director of Health and Sustainability at the CGF, Sharon Bligh highlighted the importance of growers in ensuring the sustainability of a food system. “The CGF is committed to supporting our members to help growers in their supply chains to track, address and ultimately reduce the footprint of agriculture. This data is essential for accelerating our transition to a more efficient and circular food system,” said Bligh. The Global Farm Loss Tool is compatible with existing reporting programmes, including World Resources Institute’s (WRI) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Food Loss Index, among others.

It is now available free of charge to growers and farmers worldwide at: https://www.globalfarmlosstool.org/ 

The tea garden located at Daguozhuang Village of Mengzhuang Town in east China's Shandong Province, has developed characteristic agriculture to propel rural prosperity

According to this new mode, the tea garden pays land rent at market price to local farmers each year and offers plenty of job opportunities. In addition to the tea garden, the town targets local characteristic agricultural development, and has made great efforts in developing other agricultural parks, including strawberry varieties research centre, agriculture and tourism integration park, herbal medicine park, and chicken breeding park. Moreover, the town has also mobilised related parties, creating various development models, such as village-enterprise joint venture, 'common prosperity company' and rural partners.

Thanks to all these efforts, in 2023, the collective income of all five administrative villages in the town exceeded US$27,607. More than 3,500 jobs were created by 75 enterprises within the area and surrounding areas. Local incomes went up significantly, and the entry of 48 new agricultural business entities in the town resulted in a boost in the annual output value.