High tech often doesn’t have the answer
It is probably weird to hear this from a company that has one of the modernest way of creating greens, yet contrary to the popular believe: high tech is not always the answer to your problems. Low tech on the other hand, is often the best way to go. Of course, every day we are told that technology makes our lives easier, and that we should invest in it. Nevertheless, in our experience we found this oftentimes not to be the case.
High tech, only when necessary
As one of our core values, at InstaGreen we deeply believe in the power of creation and innovation, and we are constantly working on improving in what we do: we believe in being pragmatically innovative. Yet, we don’t believe in innovation just for the sake of innovation and for showing that we use fancy innovative technologies. Indeed, for us, low-tech often ends up being better than high-tech. We believe that high-tech should only be used when it’s really necessary.
Low tech. Low cost. Low maintenance.
Fail safe is he way to go forward
In fact, applying or creating new technology and methods should always have a practical goal and either lead to timesaving, to a higher quality produce, a cost-reduction and/or a healthier world. High-tech is not always doing so. Often, innovative technologies are high maintenance ones and they require a lot of effort and of assistance when it comes to fixing problems. On the other hand, using non technological solutions is fail-safe: if you happen to have a problem, you can probably easily solve it on your own.
Nobody pays for ‘cool’
Moreover, high-tech is normally very expensive, which ends up in you having to raise the price of your products.
However, to be really competitive on the market, you have to keep a high-quality produce but to sell it for an affordable price. So why would you buy expensive high-tech tools if you can get the same results with inexpensive solutions? Just because it is “cool”? Try convincing a client to pay 6€ instead of 3€, just because you used “cool” tech in producing it – we cannot solve the unsustainability of food systems with expensive technology!
We are Urban Farming Hackers
At InstaGreen we are therefore always looking for the perfect balance and optimisation of production and sustainability. That oftentimes means that you have to do what the others don’t. Use less tech and get higher efficiency in the same act. We think of it as Urban Farming Hacking.
Do you want to know more about our solutions in urban farming? Take a look at our Urban Microgreen Farming training! 😉
