Our vision is to provide a sustainable, long-term solution for year-round production of a diverse range of fresh, highly nutritious and chemical free foods that are resilient to climate and water shortages. We are dedicated to creating sustainable indoor growing SmartFarm facilities, with a focus on serving remote Northern and Indigenous communities across Ontario and Canada.
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to implement sustainable and ecological growing solutions by designing, building, and operating indoor food-growing facilities. Through innovation and efficiency, we aim to cultivate fresh, high-quality produce while advancing our vision of a more resilient and sustainable food system.
“This hyper-local strategy could help ease food insecurity in Canada’s North”, says Thomas Graham, director of the Controlled Environment Systems
Research Facility (CESRF) at the University of Guelph.
THE AGRIPONICS TEAM
ROBERT LITTLE, Founder and CEO of Agriponics, Co-founder of Plant Castle Farms
Robert Little has a degree in Urban Planning and is the CEO, Founder and Visionary behind Agriponics Vertical Farms and co-founder of Plant Castle Farms. Since 1995, Mr. Little has had a serious concern for an impending future which involves serious food shortages and environmental devastation due to our current farming practices and the globalization of our food industry. Because of this, he realized that we needed a solution for many reasons including; the current quality of our food and the rising cost in transportation that has implications both financially, but more importantly environmentally. This is when he began to develop the concept that evolved into the Agriponics Growing System. While there are now many types of Vertical Farms, none have developed an efficient system to grow and deliver fresh produce cost effectively. Robert’s ‘Seed to Store’ growing system is designed to reduce operating costs so that year round fresh, tasty, super-organic produce can be grown at a reasonable cost, locally. By combining the Agriponics growing system with existing growing methods, we will provide very high volumes of fresh produce, including many vegetable that are not currently grown in indoor farms.
Through the Agriponics Foundation, Robert’s vision for our planet is to provide self-contained growing systems that can be deployed anywhere in the world, whether for disaster relief or food shortage issues. These systems will provide less fortunate communities their rightful access to fresh food so that they too may consume the same of quality of fresh produce that we enjoy here in Canada.
As the current Global food crisis persists, it had become increasingly clearer that Agriponics indoor farming system is needed now more than ever as we create a new future for sustainable life on this planet.
Dr. KASHIF RIAZ, Indoor Farming Specialist and Chief Plant Scientist. Co-founder of Plant Castle Farms
Kashif Riaz is an Indoor Farming Consultant, a Post Doctoral Scientist in Bacterial Genomics, a research scholar in Bacterial Communications and Phytobacteriology and has acted as an assistant professor of Phytopathology. He has consulted, designed and constructed numerous plant growth chambers and indoor vertical farms in which he was responsible for the implementation of HVAC systems, Lighting (LED (Variable Full Spectrum), irrigation and plantation models. His responsibilities also included the development of crop management plans, irrigation, phyto-sanitation, nutrition, lighting and climate recipes for indoor farms.
DIAMOND VERGADOS, Director of Agriponics and Co-founder of Plant Castle Farms
In 2016, as an advocate for the production of local foods and the discontinuation of the globalization of our food industry, Diamond turned her attention to sustainable technologies, such as vertical farming to help aid in the healing of our planet.
Through the Agriponics Foundation, Diamond’s dream is to help those in less fortunate situations and countries get their basic needs of sustenance met through local vertical farming. She believes that when we help those less fortunate than ourselves get their basic needs met, this enables them to have a more purposeful life, where they are permitted to thrive rather than merely survive.
From 2021 until present Diamond has successfully been developing a 190 acre, off grid sustainable community property that will provide spaces for up to 40 homesteads. In the future, Diamond envisions every off grid community having it’s own food source through vertical farming, with the excess food being sold to the local community thus providing an income for the sustainable community.
JENNIFER GRAY, Director of Indigenous Resources and Community Development
Jennifer Gray is Ojibway from Alderville First Nation and her Spirit Name is White Shadow Thunderbird Woman. Her clans are Eagle and Thunderbird. She has 15 years experience teaching in the Indigenous Community and as a Part time Professor at Centennial College teaching Early Childhood Education within the Indigenous Learners Stream. She is a Registered Early Childhood Educator and for 14 years worked with Native Child and Family Services of Toronto as an in that capacity, and 6 years as a Supervisor of Early Years in the Aboriginal Head Start Program (A Cultural and Language Preschool Program). Her skills as a supervisor include managing staff at 4 locations and managing large-scale budgets. Jennifer has also served as a former Director at Ontario Aboriginal Head Start Association for 2 years where she assisted in strategic planning and became proficient with (PHAC) Canada Health Funding.
Her goal is to help all First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities in growing cultural foods and medicines in a modern and healthy way allowing them to have food security and sovereignty once again.
Our vision is to provide a sustainable, long-term solution for year-round production of a diverse range of fresh, highly nutritious and chemical free foods that are resilient to climate and water shortages. We are dedicated to creating sustainable indoor growing SmartFarm facilities, with a focus on serving remote Northern and Indigenous communities across Ontario and Canada.
Our mission is to implement sustainable and ecological growing solutions by designing, building, and operating indoor food-growing facilities. Through innovation and efficiency, we aim to cultivate fresh, high-quality produce while advancing our vision of a more resilient and sustainable food system.
Robert Little has a degree in Urban Planning and is the CEO, Founder and Visionary behind Agriponics Vertical Farms and co-founder of Plant Castle Farms. Since 1995, Mr. Little has had a serious concern for an impending future which involves serious food shortages and environmental devastation due to our current farming practices and the globalization of our food industry. Because of this, he realized that we needed a solution for many reasons including; the current quality of our food and the rising cost in transportation that has implications both financially, but more importantly environmentally. This is when he began to develop the concept that evolved into the Agriponics Growing System. While there are now many types of Vertical Farms, none have developed an efficient system to grow and deliver fresh produce cost effectively. Robert’s ‘Seed to Store’ growing system is designed to reduce operating costs so that year round fresh, tasty, super-organic produce can be grown at a reasonable cost, locally. By combining the Agriponics growing system with existing growing methods, we will provide very high volumes of fresh produce, including many vegetable that are not currently grown in indoor farms.
Kashif Riaz is an Indoor Farming Consultant, a Post Doctoral Scientist in Bacterial Genomics, a research scholar in Bacterial Communications and Phytobacteriology and has acted as an assistant professor of Phytopathology. He has consulted, designed and constructed numerous plant growth chambers and indoor vertical farms in which he was responsible for the implementation of HVAC systems, Lighting (LED (Variable Full Spectrum), irrigation and plantation models. His responsibilities also included the development of crop management plans, irrigation, phyto-sanitation, nutrition, lighting and climate recipes for indoor farms.
