Mar 30, 2021
Get to know the amazing team at Agritecture! This interview features Djavid Amidi-Abraham, Director of Consulting at Agritecture Consulting.
Pathway To Agritecture
Working out of Los Angeles, California, Djavid has been part of Agritecture’s family for 4 years now. “I came to become involved with Agritecture through the NYC Ag collective. I was representing another company at the time, and I met Henry Gordon-Smith who was in the process of building his team of consultants for Blue Planet Consulting (now Agritecture Consulting),” says Djavid nostalgically.
After meeting the rest of the team, Djavid shifted gears from developing CO2 direct air capture tools as a means to supply greenhouses with carbon dioxide, to being the Lead Systems Designer at Agritecture. In this role, Djavid “came into the company as a consultant assisting with feasibility studies and farm designs”. He expressed that “my work at Agritecture exposed me to many emerging technologies and crop production systems that has helped prepare me for client work at a time when the impacts of climate change and COVID are more apparent than ever in our food system.”
Djavid’s Relationship With Controlled Environment Agriculture
Djavid has a strong passion for being involved in food security strategies, the sustainable production of food, and technological innovations. “CEA excites me because it is a confluence of technologies that have the potential to create more sustainable methods of production and distribution of fresh produce.”
His favorite project, one that also allowed him to further dive into and explore this intersection of interests, was the installation of a pilot farm in Stockholm, Sweden. “The group of young entrepreneurs that we were working with had great ideas for integrating farms into sunken assets and unused infrastructure developed for emergency storage during WW2. Placing these heat-producing facilities in the earth where it is cooler and the surrounding environment acts as a thermal sink was very interesting and a principle that could work to improve farm economics at scale.”
In the future, Djavid “hope[s] to see networks of carbon-neutral CEA farms serving cities directly from their periphery rather than importing from cities and states many food miles away.”
With his years of experience, in his Commercial Urban Farming course, Djavid discusses the various CEA growing methods and environments, and the many components that can determine the success or failure of a CEA farm. Whether you want to learn more about hydroponics, vertical farms, greenhouses, lighting, nutrient solutions, or even carbon dioxide enrichment, this is the course for you.
Director Of Consulting
Given this relationship building with clients, as of early 2021, Djavid transitioned into his new role of ‘Director Of Consulting’. “As our consulting business grew, my role changed into managing consulting work and working alongside our sales team in developing contracts, onboarding new clients, and overseeing client work,” shares Djavid.
In discussing how Agritecture works with such a varied group of clients, Djavid shares that “we believe that there is not a one-size-fits-all system that will properly serve all of our client types so we take a technology agnostic approach to solving our client’s challenges and consider options across a range of technologies within the spectrum of controlled environment agriculture. Different clients bring to the table differing requirements and we adapt our processes and services to meet these needs as best we can.”
As the new Director Of Consulting, Djavid hopes to keep connecting with like-minded innovators and changemakers, that can help drive sustainable food production and out-of-the-box strategizing. Reach out to Djavid to discuss your urban farming plans today: djavid@agritecture.com