S2E26: Sepehr Mousavi - Sustainability, Innovation and the Future of AgTech

Episode Summary

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show speaker, futurist and Chief Sustainability Officer at SweGreen, Sepehr Mousavi. Sepehr is a sustainability strategist, innovation catalyst and a passionate futurist with an international and multicultural background. His organization, SweGreen, is the number one AgTech company in Sweden and is revolutionizing the vertical farming industry by providing futuristic, smart and circular solutions for controlled-environment growing systems. In this episode, Harry and Sepehr discuss Sepehr’s unique background and vertical farming origin story. They delve deep into the concepts of symbiosis, smart real estate solutions and the importance of Research and Development. Finally, Sepehr speaks to the importance of educating the world on vertical farming and what excites him the most about the future of SweGreen and the AgTech industry.

Episode Sponsor

Ceres Greenhouse Solutions

Key Takeaways

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• 03:22 – Harry welcomes to the show Sepehr Mousavi, Chief Sustainability Officer and Founding partner at SweGreen, who discusses his background and roots, what brought him to Sweden and how he got involved in vertical farming and AgTech
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• 11:38 – What Sepehr learned from his time at Plantagon, one of the early pioneers in AgTech
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• 20:15 – Sepehr expounds on the concept of symbiosis
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• 24:18 – Sepehr talks about farming as a service
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• 30:47 – Sepehr expounds on SweGreen’s smart real estate solutions
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• 34:37 – The importance of Research and Development (R&D)
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• 36:41 – Sepehr speaks to why he identifies as a futurist, where he looks for inspiration and what excites him about the future of AgTech
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• 44:42 – The importance of educating consumers and those looking to enter a career in AgTech or vertical farming
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• 47:46 – Sepehr shares the SweGreen initiatives he’s most excited about
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• 53:11 – Harry thanks Sepehr for joining the show and let’s listeners know where they can connect with him 
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Tweetable Quotes

“If you’re going to scale down the innovation from a city function to something that could feed neighborhoods, then you could look at smart buildings and how you could build up symbiosis.” (21:09)

“The logistics of food is very difficult to handle.” (25:28)

“From the very beginning I was very interested in history. And what I learned from history is that if you look at the process of how we got here, you could speculate where we’re going to end up in the future because we always repeat these evolutionary trends.” (37:52)

“When I look at our farmers today, they are people in their twenties coming to work in their hoodies, listening to their hip-hop music, planning things on their iPad and then doing the practical work. And this is the future of our farmers.” (46:07)

“If you talk about how we conceive food as a concept that ends up in our shopping bags, people have got more used to technology solving the issue. So the reaction is ‘wow, this is really cool,’ rather than, ‘I’m a skeptic.’” (51:02)

Links Mentioned

SweGreen Website

Sepehr’s LinkedIn

Plantagon Website

Sepehr’s Blog

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