PAG | December 2021

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WATCH THE VIDEO
The famous literary complaint by poet/artist William
Blake “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to
drink”, was summarily dismissed by Thierry Perrotin
when he discussed “Livestock Nutrition Ag-Tech as
a Solution to Land and Water Scarcity” at the
Farms.com-sponsored
held
November 16-18, 2021.
Perrotin is the Vice
President of Business
Development, HydroGreen
for and a
pioneer in the usage of automatic milking robots on
global dairy farms.
Within the DeLaval Group, over the past 20 years he
held leadership roles in Canada, Switzerland, Germany,
Sweden, and the US.
With HydroGreen, Perrotin and CubicFarms—a
company founded by farmers—help farmers and
ranchers grow their own quality animal feed without
the need for farmland capable of producing it year-
round regardless of weather or season—and all the
while utilizing a fraction of the water compared to
traditional crop production.
Intrigued? So were we.
CubicFarms is an automated indoor growing technique
capable of producing commercial-scale quantities of
animal feed via its HydroGreen nutrition technology
business, and also plants and fresh produce for the
retail market through its CubicFarms AgTech entity.
Perrotin said that HydroGreen is driven by the perils
facing farmers—unpredictability. If it’s too much water,
such as the floods that confronted British Columbia
in mid November, or it is too little with the drought
going on for years now affecting most of the western
US, noted Perrotin. Then there is also the scarcity of
arable lands, with it getting worse owing to erosion,
and the increased dependence on feed suppliers and
commodities and being at the whim of economic
upheaval affecting pricing.
And, he said, beside all of that, there is still the need
for fresh, nutritious livestock feed—something that is
required on a daily basis.
Perrotin explained that for farmers, sustainability
actually means profitability—the type that allows a
farm to stay in business now and for generations to
come, as well as the use of a limited amount of natural
resources.
“We want to create consistency on the farm,” extolled
Perrotin.
Based on hydroponics, HydroGreen offers two tiers
of simple feed growing technology, both of which are
automated and scalable to provide the amount of feed
an individual farm requires on a daily basis—the six-
level DGS 66 and the larger eight level GLS 808 Grow
Systems.
Each tech can grow feed from seed to super seed
sprout in six days, using the hydroponic technology,
clean water, air and light. Grown within a controlled
environment—yes, you may have to construct a
building for it—Perrotin said the system will produce
365 harvests a year that is unaffected by weather and
does not require the use of pesticides or herbicides.
A single unit of the DGS 66 Grow System will be able
to feed approximately 100 cows—but because it is
scalable, more units mean more feed grown for larger
numbers of cows.
GROWING YOUR OWN FEED FOR LESS
Little water—no problem. Learn how farmers can produce
their own animal feed year-round.
ANDREW JOSEPH
FARMS.COM
PHOTO: djgunner/E+ via Getty Images