As climate change is expected to cause a noticeable decline in beer quality, a startup called Ekonoke is taking matters into its own hands.
To adjust to a warming climate, the startup in Spain is choosing to cultivate its hops hydroponically indoors with LED lights instead of farming the plants outdoors, where they're traditionally grown. The lights speed up the production process by tricking the hops to flower without going into dormancy first. Plus, the controlled environment optimizes growing conditions by protecting the hops from weather extremes, which has become an increasing problem as climates change.
Hops tend to thrive in temperate climates that are similar to those of the Pacific Northwest. According to Phys.org, the high-tech strategy aims to protect the drinkability of beer by replicating ideal conditions indoors.
"One of the things we're trying to do at the moment is see how far we can recreate the terroir of a specific variety of hops; to see if we can create the right nutritional and climatic conditions so that the hops taste and smell exactly as they would in the region they're from at a certain time of the season," Ines Sagrario, the company's co-founder, told The Guardian.
But the concept of growing crops indoors is not a new one. For instance, farmers have cultivated hop starts in greenhouses, while other growers have experimented with taking their entire cultivating operation inside. And many have used LED lights to grow crops over the years. But from a business standpoint, the timeliness and demand for Ekonoke's technology may be what causes its business to explode.
In general, temperature fluctuations, changes in precipitation patterns, and soil quality decline are reducing agricultural productivity across the globe. In places such as Africa, food production has plummeted 34% because of extreme weather caused by increasing global temperatures. And looking at the hops industry alone, yields are expected to decline by up to 18% by 2050. Unfortunately, this means the cost of your beer will go up and the quality will likely go down.
Ekonoke hopes its technology provides an applicable solution for the industry. Though indoor yields are shown to be less significant compared to plants grown outdoors, the quality of the crop tends to be higher in essential oils and alpha acids, which contribute to a beer's distinctive taste. Plus, from an environmental standpoint, vertical indoor farming requires less water and space than outdoor farming.
"People ask us if hop farmers outdoors feel threatened by us, but we're not threatening them. Climate change is threatening them," Sagrario said, per Phys.org.
The startup is already partnering with the Spanish beer brand Estrella Galicia and operating a pilot indoor farm to show that its hops can be used on a commercial scale. And from a supply standpoint, the company is working with Siemens, the multinational technology conglomerate, with a focus on sustainability.
Ekonoke said it hopes the technology spreads worldwide.
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