Even after more than three decades in the agriculture industry, Dr John Purcell still speaks about the sector with excitement.
Phoning in from the US — on the day of his 37th wedding anniversary — Purcell gushes about the “remarkable” work of farmers worldwide for keeping produce flowing despite Covid-19.
“It’s not easy, you know, when I think about what we and other companies have done and how farmers are trying to keep the appropriate safe distances, trying to maintain the safety of employees, while also keeping food flowing into grocery stores — it’s been a real challenge,” Purcell tells The Edge Singapore.
“It’s a great reminder of just how fragile that food chain is, and I think this is another case where vertical farming is going to be part of the solution — producing food closer to where it’s consumed. When you shorten that supply chain, that’s a good thing,” he adds.
Purcell speaks from experience. Throughout his career, the 61-year-old has been involved with agriculture in 35 countries. But with borders now shut in most parts of the world, the new president and CEO of Unfold hopes the company can help alleviate food scarcity concerns worldwide, starting from a lab in Davis, California.
Unveiled on Aug 12, Unfold is a vertical farming venture by Temasek, the Singapore state investment company, and Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment arm of German life sciences giant Bayer. “By utilising seed genetics (germplasm) from vegetable crops, Unfold will focus on developing new seed varieties coupled with agronomic advice tailored for the unique indoor environment of vertical farms,” says Bayer.
The company raised US$30 million ($41.19 million) in its initial funding round and entered into an agreement for certain rights to germplasm from Bayer’s vegetable portfolio. “Unfold will be the first company that will really be able to take advantage of the rich seed and germplasm resources that Bayer has,” says Purcell.
Digitalisation of farming
Purcell brings with him 29 years of experience at American agrochemical company Monsanto, where he last served as vice president. Following an acquisition by Bayer AG in 2018, Purcell became senior vice president and head of vegetables R&D in the MNC’s crop science division.
Unfold and its technologies have been in the works for some time, says Purcell. “I knew there were conversations going on for several months because, you know, these deals can be complicated. But we were doing some work internally working on vertical farming.”
Vertical farms, also known as indoor farms or plant facilities with artificial light (PFAL), grow crops more quickly while using less space and fewer natural resources. Investment in the vertical farming market has increased significantly in recent years mainly due to decreasing arable land, increasing market demand for local, sustainable produce, and migration towards megacities.
“For me, it was not a hard decision. It was hard to leave colleagues you’ve known for a long time, but the opportunity is so wonderful,” he says. “I’m so excited about where vertical farming is going, and about taking advantage of all the work I’ve done over a number of years and really applying that to making vertical farmers successful around the world.”
Purcell expects it will take a year or so to get things up and running at Unfold: “I think sometime next year we’ll be able to start having the first products that we’ve tested being sold, but it’ll be a few years before we really have our breeding programmes, our selection programmes, and the big impact we’re going to have.”
“Once we have our R&D engine built, we have our testing capabilities built, and we have the collaborations with vertical farms demonstrate that value; that’s where you’ll see the sales start to accelerate. But that’s a few years down the road,” he adds.
For now, the company’s main facility is still “very much under construction” as Unfold is just a few weeks old, says Purcell. Incorporated in Delaware but headquartered in California, Purcell says he received the first draft of the company’s lease just minutes before our call began.
“It’ll be a multipurpose facility. We’ll be in an area with a lot of small companies involved in biological sciences [and] related to agriculture… It helps to be a part of a start-up environment but also a part of the larger agriculture community which Davis is so famous for,” Purcell explains.
With a population of about 65,000, Davis is also home to some 9,000 students at the University of California, Davis. One of its four colleges, the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, offers degrees in 27 undergraduate majors and 33 graduate courses.
Digitalisation is becoming increasingly present in farming, says Purcell, and Davis was also chosen for its proximity to Silicon Valley — the innovation mecca is less than two hours’ drive away. “It’s become quite a confluence of disciplines that are required. You need individuals like me who have spent a lot of time in fields, in production areas, to know agriculture,” he says.
Yet, in this new way of farming, technology and the digital component is increasingly important too. “You think about that controlled environment, the robotic systems for harvesting, the control engineering systems for making sure you have the proper humidity control, temperature control, and of course, the artificial lighting... So, we’ll be hiring software engineers; we’ll be hiring data analysts,” says Purcell.
Given how important it is to ensure a constant, plentiful supply of food, there is a universal desire to modernise farming, says Purcell. “It doesn’t matter whether you have a thousand acres in California or a hectare in Africa or India; they’re all farmers, and they’re all looking for innovation.”
Food sustainability
In recent years, Temasek has diversified its investment activities from the traditional finance, telecommunications and property sectors into life sciences and agriculture areas. It is funding related research, and also investing in established companies with an existing pool of know-how, such as Bayer. Back in 2018, Temasek paid EUR3 billion for an additional 3.6% stake in Bayer and increased its total to about 4%. The additional investment from Temasek was part of Bayer’s efforts to fund the US$62.5 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto, where Purcell was from.
Presumably, the underlying driver is about sustainability of food supplies. By 2030, Asia is projected to be home to more than half of the global population but only one quarter of the world’s agricultural land, according to the Asia Food Challenge Report jointly published by PwC, Rabobank and Temasek in November 2019.
Tiny Singapore has traditionally taken its imports of foodstuff for granted. The precious land is generally thought to be better used for building expensive offices and condos instead of growing vegetables. But, the disruption of supply chains by Covid-19 has brought about a new urgency to re-examine where our food is coming from.
In March this year, the government laid out the “30 by 30” plan to have 30% of the country’s nutritional needs produced locally by 2030, from less than 10% now. According to the Singapore Food Agency, the 77 leafy vegetable farms here accounted for 14% of total consumption in 2019.
Purcell calls the “30 by 30” plan a “great aspiration”, and he believes Singapore will make great strides towards this target – helped by vertical farming.
He says: “When you think about a sector like vertical farming, Singapore is an obvious place where it will thrive. I think one of the things that really impressed me at Temasek was their vision for contributing positively to how food is produced… and it’s great because it fits very well with my own personal ideal.
“When you share core values: the commitment to sustainability, having food produced in a better way, thinking bigger than just business [but also] the impact we are having on the world; those are the core values that Bayer and Temasek share, and Unfold shares [too]. I’m a big believer that if you have a way to connect on the ideals on what you really believe in, the rest all works out.”
While Bayer and Temasek hold equal shares of Unfold for a start, the proportion may change over time as Unfold opens up to more investors. “We’re going to be open because as this business grows, you’re going to need any more capital,” Purcell says.
Planting a legacy
Agriculture is a great place to spend your life on, declares Purcell. Prior to joining the food and agriculture industry in 1989, Purcell was a post-doctoral researcher at the US Department of Agriculture. He earned his doctorate in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Massachusetts.
But his love for farming sprouted many years earlier. Growing up as a city kid in Washington, DC, a young Purcell would spend his summers at his aunt’s corn and soybean fields. “I went to an agricultural university for my graduate work, and the rest of my life has been spent trying to help farmers,” he says.
Together with his brother, Purcell runs a family ranch in Montana, where he is a minority owner. “I try to help him out when I can, but he does a wonderful job and he’s done a great sustainable operation there too, and it’s fun to have it part of the family,” he says. His son is an analyst with the Brookings Institution In Washington, DC, while his daughter is a communications manager for the Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture initiative.
“Once you’re in agriculture and food, it just gets in your blood,” Purcell says. “We’ve got a lot more people coming on this earth and we need great young minds who are going to be able to solve the challenges we have with climate change. We need as many smart people as we can thinking about producing food the better way."
