Honey, put on your suit. It's time to till the land.
You read that right. As part of our march into a
Blade Runner future, an old industrial steel plant is being turned into a
vertical farm.
The new 69,000-square-foot complex will also contain labs, offices and a cafe and is expected to be finished next year.
Unlike urban vegetable gardens of the past that took advantage of empty lots or evolved in rooftop greenhouses, AeroFarms employs so-called aeroponics and stacks its produce vertically, meaning plants are arrayed not in long rows but upward. Because the farming is completely indoors, it relies on LED bulbs, with crops growing in cloth and fed with a nutrient mist.
The whole thing is being funded with state subsidized tax credits and grants—and Goldman Sachs.
The complex, a group of metal-block, low-slung buildings, some connected, some not, also has prominent backers. Through its Urban Investment Group, Goldman Sachs is picking up the bulk of the $39 million cost for development of the AeroFarms Ironbound complex, using equity, debt and bridge financing. Prudential Financial, whose headquarters are now in Newark, is also an investor. The project has been awarded $9 million in city and state money, in tax credits and grants.
AeroFarms' CEO David Rosenberg does make some very interesting and compelling claims for the need for vertical farming in the developing world.
Integrated Pest Management & Pesticide-Free
Growing indoors changes both pest pressure and the pest environment. Plants are grown in a machine inside the building and not out in the open where they attract pests. Our proprietary cloth growing medium is sanitized between every growing cycle of 12-16 days. The typical pest cycles of more than 21 days are broken. With our pest-resistant design, pesticides are unnecessary.
Reduced Contamination Risk
By removing soil from the growing of greens, we improve food safety by avoiding completely contaminated manure and irrigation water.
There's also the fact that this kind of farming would be able to live in much closer proximity to the people being fed, cutting down shipping costs, pollutions, and product safety issues. I don't know how I feel about this personally but it does look like something we may have to get used to in the
not-too-distant future.
Scheduled to open this fall inside the new Ironbound site, AeroFarms projects it will reap up to 30 harvests a year, or two million pounds of greens, including kale, arugula and romaine lettuce, Mr. Rosenberg said. At that output, AeroFarms would be among the most productive vertical farms in the country, analysts say.
But in an industry where profitability is elusive, success is hardly guaranteed. Indeed, AeroFarms is still lining up customers, which ideally will include grocery chains, schools and restaurants, company officials said. Not yet profitable, the company, which plans to expand to 70 employees, from 20, is also seeking venture capital funding.
Maybe a little more distant. You can watch a Bloomberg report on the farm below the fold.