Netled’s Niko Kurumaa on the potential of indoor agriculture in North America
When we dialed Niko Kurumaa, sales manager at Netled, he took Contain’s call from the rooftop of a hotel in Los Angeles. When asked how his day was going, the tone of his voice was as bright and cheery as the California sun, “Well, it’s nice here so you could say that I’m doing pretty well,” he said.
But Kurumaa was pretty far away from his home-base in Finland. So, what brought him all the way from the cold of Finland to the American west coast?
He was there for one reason: the promise of indoor agriculture in North America.
Kurumaa is the sales manager at Netled, a Finnish company that sells indoor agricultural tech like LED lights for indoor growing and fully integrated vertical farms. And now he’s in the United States to lead sales at the company as it enters the North American indoor agricultural market.
“We at Netled think that there is a huge potential for our products in North America.” He continued, “We have always been a global company, but now we see that North America has the need and the market for indoor growing technology.”
Netled is new to the indoor agriculture market — Kurumaa has been working in the United States for around five months now, and has one LED lighting project in the United States so far. Although their experience working in the United States may be limited, this is just the beginning, and they see potential for future business.
Growing North American indoor agriculture
When Kurumaa talks about Netled’s reasoning behind entering the United States, it all comes down to the economics of indoor farming and the quality of greens grown by their indoor farms.
“Our [vertical farming] system doesn’t just grow better quality greens; it’s economically feasible when you compare it to the traditional ways of growing greens and herbs” Kurumaa explained.
But the Company has seen some challenges to entering the U.S. market, like communicating its feasibility to possible customers.
“There are times when we need to explain the process of indoor agriculture when we meet potential growers. Some people don’t even believe that this technology exists, because people know less about it.”
This makes selling their technologies a challenge, but they find ways to overcome misunderstandings.
“We have two reference farms. One in the UK to go with our customers and a larger one in Finland that has around 47,000 square feet of growing space,” he told Contain.
The company can take growers there so that they can see first hand how vertical farming works. In addition to the farms, Netled has even set up their office as an indoor farm just so that visitors can see their technology in action when they come in for meetings.
Proving the value of indoor agriculture may be a challenge, but to Kurumaa, the promises dwarf any barriers they face to entering the market.
“South California has a long drought season and forest fires are raging. We need to think about how we use land and water. Systems like ours use about 99 percent less than conventional farms,” he said.
He told Contain, “most leafy greens are grown with pesticides in California and Mexico and then are shipped thousands of miles all over North America. People are starting to see that this isn’t an ethical way to produce food.”
He paused and then said, “Now we can produce much better lettuce in urban areas right next to the consumer. There is no reason to ship lettuce the long distances.”
It just goes to show that for this company, the call for indoor agriculture isn’t just about economic feasibility. It is about providing a brighter future for the regions of the United States like the American west. As Netled expands business to the United States, they bring an economic rational, and an ethical imperative to live more sustainably.
