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Agriculturalists today encounter a range of obstacles, spanning from supply chain reliability to nutrient and waste management. Yet overshadowing it all is the necessity to uphold profitability in the face of transforming markets and heightened unpredictability.
Fyto, established by ex-MIT employee Jason Prapas, is providing a highly automated cultivation solution that tackles several of farmers’ most significant issues simultaneously.
At the core of Fyto’s system is Lemna, a category of small aquatic plants commonly referred to as duckweed. Most individuals likely have spotted dense green patches of Lemna floating on ponds and wetlands. However, Lemna is also abundant in protein and can double in biomass every two days. Fyto has developed an automated cropping system utilizing nitrogen-rich wastewater from dairy farms to cultivate Lemna in shallow pools on otherwise less productive farmland. Above the pools, the company has constructed what it considers the largest agricultural robots worldwide, which assess plant health and sustainably harvest the Lemna. The harvested Lemna can then serve as a high-protein feed for livestock or as a fertilizer additive.
Fyto’s systems are engineered to depend on minimal land, water, and labor while fostering a more sustainable and profitable food ecosystem.
“We created from the ground up a robotic system that eliminates the uncertainty associated with cultivating this crop,” states Prapas, who previously led the translational research program at MIT’s Tata Center. “It monitors the crop daily, takes stock to determine plant quantities, assesses how much should be harvested for optimal growth the following day, detects slight color deviations or nutrient shortages, and can recommend various interventions based on all that information.”
From play pools to dairy farms
Prapas’ initial job post-college was with an MIT spinoff named Green Fuel, which harvested algae to produce biofuel. He later returned to academia to pursue a master’s and then a PhD in mechanical engineering, while continuing to engage with startups. After completing his PhD at Colorado State University, he co-founded Factor[e] Ventures to finance and support startups dedicated to enhancing energy availability in emerging markets.
Through this work, Prapas became acquainted with MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design.
“We were genuinely intrigued by the new innovations emerging from the MIT Tata Center and in funding new startups addressing global climate challenges in developing regions,” Prapas reminisces. “The Tata Center aimed to ensure these technologies were implemented rather than simply patented and stored away. It created a fruitful collaboration.”
One individual Prapas got to know was Rob Stoner, the founding director of the Tata Center, who encouraged him to actively engage in the commercialization of new technologies. In 2017, Prapas assumed the role of translational research director at the Tata Center. During that period, he collaborated with MIT students, faculty, and staff to evaluate their inventions in real-world scenarios, much of which revolved around agricultural innovations.
“Agriculture is a fundamental aspect of life for many people globally—encompassing both subsistence farming and food production for the community and beyond,” Prapas points out. “This holds significant consequences for water consumption, energy use, and labor. For years, I pondered how to make farming a more appealing pursuit for individuals: How do we alleviate the labor burden, enhance efficiency, and increase profitability?”
Through his engagements at MIT and with Factor[e], Prapas explored hundreds of farms globally, leading him to contemplate the scarcity of quality options for farming inputs, such as animal feed and fertilizers. This dilemma symbolized a lucrative opportunity.
Fyto’s journey began with children’s pools. Prapas commenced cultivating aquatic plants in his backyard, utilizing them as a fertilizer for vegetables. This experience illuminated how challenging it would be to instruct individuals to grow and harvest Lemna at a large scale on farms.
“I recognized we needed to invent both the agricultural method and the machinery and processes required to cultivate it efficiently at scale,” Prapas elaborates.
Prapas began sharing his ideas with others around 2019.
“The MIT and Boston ecosystems are fantastic for presenting somewhat unconventional ideas to receptive audiences and observing which concepts resonate,” Prapas remarks. “There’s an inherent advantage to being at MIT, where bold ideas organically arise, and you can attempt to implement them.”
Prapas, who departed MIT to guide Fyto in 2019, collaborated with Valerie Peng ’17, SM ’19, then a graduate student at MIT who became his inaugural hire.
“Farmers put in immense effort, and I hold them in high regard,” says Peng, who serves as Fyto’s engineering lead. “People discuss political divides, yet there’s substantial agreement on using fewer resources, maximizing what one has, and making our food systems more resilient to droughts, supply chain interruptions, and more. There’s more commonality among everyone than one might anticipate.”
A novel agricultural approach
Lemna can yield significantly more protein per acre than soy, another prevalent protein source in farming, but it necessitates ample nitrogen to thrive. Fortunately, many types of farmers, particularly large dairy producers, possess plentiful nitrogen resources in the waste generated from cleaning cow manure.
“These waste streams represent a considerable issue: In California, they’re thought to be one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector despite the cultivation of hundreds of crops,” Prapas explains.
For the past few years, Fyto has operated its systems in pilot programs on farms, testing the crop as feed and fertilizer before supplying it to clients. The systems deployed thus far by Fyto measure about 50 feet in width, but the company is actively launching its latest version, which is 160 feet wide. Ultimately, Fyto intends to sell these systems directly to farmers.
Fyto is currently awaiting California’s endorsement for usage in feed, but Lemna has already received approval in Europe. The company has also secured a fertilizer license for its plant-based product, with promising preliminary outcomes from trials and plans to introduce new fertilizer offerings this year.
While Fyto is concentrating on dairy farms for its initial implementations, it has also cultivated Lemna using chicken manure, and Prapas notes that even entities like cheese manufacturers face nitrogen waste challenges that Fyto could address.
“Consider us as a refinement step that can be added to any system with an organic waste stream,” Prapas suggests. “In that context, we’re keen on growing our crops on it. We’ve encountered very few materials that the plant cannot thrive on. Globally, we view this as a new farming methodology, indicating it holds substantial potential applications.”
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