The commercial agriculture industry will undergo a seismic change over the next 36 months. In the same manner as the semiconductor industry reshaped business, compound semiconductors (also known as LEDs), will transform the cultivation world.
Our focus at Fluence Bioengineering is to assist our partners as they embark on this journey of discovery and help them make more informed choices as they allocate often- limited capital. Helping them achieve and exceed their financial performance metrics is one of our primary goals as an organization.
Given recent regulatory changes and the extraordinary growth of commercial-scale cannabis operations, our focus, by necessity, extends far beyond photons into the realm of systems engineering, plant process flow, cultivation science, utility incentives and sophisticated financial instruments. We’ve been fortunate to have a wonderful network of support from our traditional horticulture clients, controlled-environment agriculture specialists, and leading academics around the world who are driving innovation across the horticulture landscape. This network has been critical to our R&D efforts, product road map, and the new portfolio of full-spectrum solutions that we introduced over the last year.
The cannabis community's response to these introductions has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are incredibly thankful for our partners’ support. Our consistent message — centered around increased light intensity to drive yield, improved spectral composition to enhance chemotype expression, greater photon efficiency to reduce HVAC Capital Expenditures (CapEx) and Operating Expense (OpEx), and numerous other quantifiable differentials versus legacy technologies — continues to gain momentum.
But with that said, many unanswered questions remain in this rapidly emerging industry. Cannabinoid and terpenoid science is in its infancy; advanced controls will continue to evolve to allow us to better control OpEx and transform the HVAC and dehumidification challenges we face in gardens; the financial discipline that permeates traditional commercial agriculture will transform cannabis cultivation; and our industry will become better stewards for our patients, consumers and the environment, as we collectively embrace more ecologically friendly, consistent and optimized cultivation practices.
For the team at Fluence, it is truly an exciting time to be in commercial agriculture, and it is a privilege to work with the many cultivators leading the way in commercial cannabis cultivation. We are pleased to be the exclusive sponsor of this special “State of the Lighting Market” report, produced by our partners at Cannabis Business Times. Virtually no data exists about the cannabis lighting market as a whole; this report gives us a foundation on which to build benchmarks and monitor changes over the coming years. We look forward to embracing the next frontier together.
Jerry Kieran
Chief Business Development Officer
Fluence Bioengineering
