Fyto, a company established by Jason Prapas, former translational research director at the MIT Tata Center, has developed an automated system for cultivating and harvesting Lemna's aquatic plant directly on dairy farms.
Fyto helps farmers grow plant-based feed and fertilizer using wastewater for a more sustainable, profitable food system. Image Credit: Fyto
Today's farmers grapple with various challenges, ranging from supply chain stability to nutrient and waste management. However, the overarching concern is sustaining profitability amidst evolving markets and heightened uncertainty.
Fyto, founded by ex-MIT staff member Jason Prapas, offers a highly automated cultivation system designed to simultaneously address several of farmers' most pressing issues.
Central to Fyto's system is Lemna, a genus of small aquatic plants commonly known as duckweed. While many have likely observed dense green layers of Lemna on the surface of ponds and swamps, it is also remarkably high in protein and can double its biomass every two days. Fyto has engineered an automated cropping system that utilizes nitrogen-rich wastewater from dairy farms to cultivate Lemna in shallow pools situated on otherwise less productive agricultural land.
Above these pools, the company has constructed what it believes to be the world's largest agricultural robots. These robots monitor plant health and harvest the Lemna in a sustainable manner. The harvested Lemna can then be utilized on the farms as protein-rich cattle feed or fertilizer supplement.
Fyto's systems are designed to minimize land, water, and labor use while fostering a more sustainable and profitable food production system.
We developed from scratch a robotic system that takes the guesswork out of farming this crop. It looks at the crop on a daily basis, takes inventory to know how many plants there are, how much should be harvested to have healthy growth the next day, can detect if the color is slightly off or there are nutrient deficiencies, and can suggest different interventions based on all that data.
Jason Prapas, Translational Research Program Lead and Ex-MIT Staff Member, MIT Tata Center
From Kiddie Pools to Cow Farms
Prapas' initial employment after graduating from college was with Green Fuel, an MIT spinout that cultivated algae for biofuel production. Prapas later pursued a master's degree and then a PhD in mechanical engineering, all while maintaining involvement with startup ventures.
After completing a Ph.D at Colorado State University, Prapas co-founded Factor[e] Ventures, an organization dedicated to funding and nurturing startups focused on enhancing energy access in developing markets.
It was through this endeavor that Prapas became acquainted with MIT's Tata Center for Technology and Design.
“We were really interested in the new technologies being developed at the MIT Tata Center, and in funding new startups taking on some of these global climate challenges in emerging markets. The Tata Center was interested in making sure these technologies get put into practice rather than patented and put on a shelf somewhere. It was a good synergy,” recalled Prapas.
Among Prapas' acquaintances was Rob Stoner, the founding Director of the Tata Center, who encouraged Prapas to become more directly engaged in the commercialization of novel technologies. In 2017, Prapas joined the Tata Center as its Translational Research Director. In this role, Prapas collaborated with MIT students, faculty, and staff to evaluate their inventions in practical settings. A significant portion of this work involved agricultural innovations.
“Farming is a fact of life for a lot of folks around the world — both subsistence farming but also producing food for the community and beyond. That has huge implications for water usage, electricity consumption, labor. For years, I’d been thinking about how we make farming a more attractive endeavor for people: How do we make it less back-breaking, more efficient, and more economical?” said Prapas.
Prapas' experiences at MIT and Factor involved visiting numerous farms globally, which led him to consider the limited high-quality options available for farming inputs such as animal feed and fertilizers. He recognized this problem as a potential business venture.
Fyto's initial stages involved using children's pools. Prapas began cultivating aquatic plants in his own backyard, utilizing them as a fertilizer for his vegetables. This hands-on experience highlighted the significant challenge of training individuals to cultivate and harvest Lemna on a large scale on farms.
“I realized we’d have to invent both the farming method — the agronomy — and the equipment and processes to grow it at scale cost effectively,” explained Prapas.
Prapas began sharing the ideas with others around 2019.
The MIT and Boston ecosystems are great for pitching somewhat crazy ideas to willing audiences and seeing what sticks. There’s an intangible benefit of being at MIT, where you just can’t help but think of bold ideas and try putting them into practice.
Jason Prapas, Translational Research Program Lead and Ex-MIT Staff Member, MIT Tata Center
Prapas departed from MIT in 2019 to lead Fyto and partnered with Valerie Peng, who received an SB in 2017 and an SM in 2019 from MIT, and became the first employee.
Farmers work so hard, and I have so much respect for what they do. People talk about the political divide, but there’s a lot of alignment around using less, doing more with what you have, and making our food systems more resilient to drought, supply chain disruptions, and everything else. There’s more in common with everyone than you’d expect.
Valerie Peng, Head, Engineering, Fyto
A New Farming Method
While Lemna can generate significantly more protein per acre than soy, another prevalent protein source in agriculture, but its cultivation necessitates substantial amounts of nitrogen. Fortunately, many farmers, particularly large-scale dairy farmers, have readily available nitrogen sources in the wastewater generated from cleaning out cow manure.
“These waste streams are a big problem: In California it’s believed to be one of the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture sector despite the fact that hundreds of crops are grown in California,” said Prapas.
Over the past few years, Fyto has been piloting its systems on farms, testing Lemna as both animal feed and fertilizer before supplying it to customers. The systems Fyto has implemented to date are approximately 50 feet in width, but the company is currently in the process of commissioning its latest version, which spans 160 feet. Fyto's long-term plan is to sell these systems directly to farmers.
While Fyto is currently awaiting approval in California for Lemna's use as animal feed, it has already received approval in Europe. Additionally, Fyto has obtained a fertilizer license for its plant-based fertilizer, which has shown promising early results in trials, and the company intends to launch new fertilizer products this year.
Although Fyto's initial focus is on dairy farms for its early deployments, the company has also successfully cultivated Lemna using manure from chickens. Prapas also points out that even businesses like cheese producers face nitrogen waste management challenges that Fyto's technology could address.
“Think of us like a polishing step you could put on the end of any system that has an organic waste stream. In that situation, we’re interested in growing our crops on it. We’ve had very few things that the plant can’t grow on. Globally, we see this as a new farming method, and that means it’s got a lot of potential applications,” said Prapas.