There’s an emerging wave in the approach to farming all around the world, and it’s very evident at CES 2025. Several companies are represented by their home countries on the convention floor to demonstrate how they’re becoming leaders in the agritech movement, particularly in the way we can implement AI to grow crops more efficiently.
Based on its prominent presence at CES, it’s clear that South Korea, more than any of the dozens of countries and regions represented, is prioritizing getting younger generations into farming by making it more appealing to them. The country is pushing to integrate AI into vertical farming and using innovative techniques like robotics and automation to make it possible in urban areas. These AI technologies are collecting so much data that it’s bound to reduce human error and make many components of farming a lot easier to manage.
This story will be updated throughout the week of CES.
Airfarm
Airfarm is a CES Innovation Award honoree for a second year in a row. This year it was honored in the food and agricultural technology category and last year it was honored in the human security category. As the name suggests, Airfarm is an inflatable and aeroponic indoor farm. It comes in two sizes: a 10 ft Airfarm, which is primarily used for educational, research and home-use, and a 20 ft Airfarm, to create a large yield if you plan to sell your crops. It arrives deflated and comes with a pump to inflate the farm within three to four hours and is ready to begin cultivating immediately at that point.
Sein Kwon, the company’s head of business, tells me that Midbar, the name of the Korean company that makes Airfarm, means desert in Hebrew. It began testing the product in the Middle East, more specifically at the University of Abu Dhabi, a region where the company feels it could make a huge impact. A nozzle system in the controlled environment sprays mist throughout the roots of the plants. Despite the mist, the Airfarm claims to reduce 90% of water usage compared to other vertical farms. And because it’s also aeroponic, the roots are believed to be able to breathe better as they hang. The AI vision system collects data like how to change the temperature, humidity and other environmental controls.
The overall mission is to make it possible to cultivate crops in areas where it is often impossible due to a certain climate, and where it may be impossible in the future due to climate change. The Airfarm is able to make any climate needed at any time of the year. Instead of a few cycles per year, it allows you to grow and harvest dozens of times per year because seasons don’t matter inside the Airfarm. It creates whatever season necessary at any point of the year. Midbar is working to sell Airfarm in more regions around the world, including in the US, particularly colder regions where farming is more difficult year round.
Urban Ponics
After Living in Venezuela for 20 years, Laurens Trebes and his son Johannes, of the Netherlands, were inspired to create a company that could mimic the mist of the rainforest canopy. Urban Ponics is a semi-controlled aeroponic environment, but the company says it goes beyond aeroponics and into “mist ponics.” It sources minerals from places like Great Salt Lake and removes the sodium chloride to create a nutrient-dense mist throughout the environment for the crops to blossom.
Right now the company is working with about 20 farmers who work in overly arid and humid environments like in deserts and tropical areas. The semi-controlled environment allows farmers to grow whatever they want inside. It is not fully controlled because they do use natural sunlight, so places like Las Vegas are a good example of a region that could greatly benefit from Urban Ponics. The technology they have created collects data from inside the ecosystem to better understand how to control the mist. They view this as different from vertical farming because it uses less energy. It’s a way to bring farming into urban areas as well as tough environments. When you buy Urban Ponics, in addition to the container itself, you receive the nutrient-rich solution that mists throughout the ecosystem.
Rowain
Rowain has created what it calls an “Intellifarm,” which uses AI to grow food from seed to consumption in just 30 days. In its current startup phase, the two-year-old Korean company is only growing lettuce, but it will soon branch out to grow any crop possible because the controlled environment allows for that. Using hydroponics in a vertical farming system, AI is capable of uploading two tons of lettuce into the shelves and control the amount of nutrients they receive. A fan on each floor controls the air flow while tubes of CO2 flow through each level.
Founder and CEO Lee Kyeongha has a PhD in Robotics. Part of why he created Rowain is because less and less people of younger generations are getting into the agriculture business. Because Rowain uses very minimal human interaction, it appeases the labor shortage. On the other hand, it’s also a way to get these younger people into agriculture because they wouldn’t need to live in rural areas and they don’t need all of the generational knowledge because of the AI assistance. Human interaction also increases the risk of contamination and potential food recalls, so this AI system reduces that risk and creates less food waste that results from recalls. The company is growing this year, especially as it gets ready to introduce an AI-generated video surveillance system inside of the ecosystem. If you are in a remote part of the world, Rowain allows you to grow whatever crop you want and keep your food local.
Nanomik
Oil and water don’t mix. That’s why Turkish company Nanomik created proprietary IP to develop formulas that biocapsulate beneficial natural oils with a solution that makes them able to be sprayed on crops. The spray creates little spheres that stick to and get absorbed by the plants, and the biocapsulation technology provides them extra stabilization. They will stick even against rain. The oils are sourced mostly from plants, like thyme, tea tree, and orange oils.
Nanomik’s cofounders Dr. Buse Berber Orcen and Arda Orcen tell me that they have created the first microcapsulation generation system in the world, which they have a patent on. Nanomik is currently only being utilized in Turkey, but the company is in talks with the US EPA. They say that this is needed most in the US because of pesticide regulations here, so the government is more welcome to biopesticides like what Nanomik can provide. They say Nanomik’s technology provides 95% efficacy, which is much higher than biopesticides without biocapsulation. It’s been nearly 10 years since Dr. Orcen came up with the idea of biocapsulation. “Due to our proprietary capsulation technology, we can achieve up to 30% improved efficiency compared to biological control agents while maintaining comparable prices to synthetic pesticides,” she says.
Farm Fleet
Farm Fleet is a service that connects farmers with the capability to rent drones that can help spray all sorts of pesticides throughout a field. Knowing that Ukraine is one of the global leaders in drone technology, it makes a lot of sense that this company was founded there several years ago. Ukraine has sprayed more pesticides than all of the EU, the company’s cofounder, Valerii Iakovenko, tells me, largely because the EU put strict regulations on aerial pesticides in 2009. But he says that although the intentions were good because of the negative side effects that aerial input can cause, drones were not even part of the conversation at the time, and spraying with more precision through a drone nearly rids all of those negative consequences. That’s because, Iakovenko tells me, the drones can get extremely close to the crops, and its propellers push the liquid down so there is little debris. The drones can also work at night, which is rare for farmers, so humans do not get exposed to anything harmful, nor do pollinators which are also usually dormant at night. The war in Ukraine has put a large strain on the business, but Farm Fleet is beginning to make a dent in the US, which the company views as its biggest opportunity.
These are not casual drones that you can buy in retail. They are about 6 ft by 6 ft and can weigh up to 200 pounds. In order to obtain one from Farm Fleet’s fleet of drones or from the other providers it can connect farmers to, you need to get approval from the FAA. The system uses a low-volume spraying technology, so it also saves farmers resources and money. In terms of AI, the drones also collect data from areas that are difficult for humans to reach, especially throughout vast regions of land with few farmers running the place. The data commands the drone to spray in areas that need it most, where humans often spray too much in places that don’t need it because they wouldn’t otherwise know. Regulators gave the green light to agricultural drones in 2024, so the US is officially ready, Iakovenko says. “I believe this will create 150k jobs in 2-3 years,” he adds, referring to getting younger farmers interested in agriculture.
