Vertical Farming for Organic Produce

[Barbara from New Jersey]

plenty.ag is a new company trying to develop vertical farming in trailers.  The produce is raised to provide much more nutrition, uses less water and is grown with LED lighting.  It is expected that the produce will be organic, not GMO and price competitive with traditionally grown produce.  The company has raised ofer $200,000,000 to develop this idea through grants from Amazon and Alphabet and SoftBank.  No pesticides or herbicides are needed.  The produce is grown in trailers.  It is expected that the farmland formerly devoted to the foods raised will be able to return to its natural state.  Very  interesting concept!  Worthwhile following their progress and seeing if you can buy this produce in your neiborhood store.


Sorry, the link doesn't work, so just type  plenty.ag  into your search engine.

[Rita]

Here's a working link for that:  https://www.plenty.ag


I had considered starting a business doing that.   In fact, I went to a week long hands-on training in Canada to learn about it.

[martygras]

I honestly don't think they should be able to call produce organic if there's no soil, sunshine or microbes involved. I think this was debated a few years ago in the industry though.

[Barbara from New Jersey]

Martygras,


Thats the key point!  However, when you consider that our soils are so depleted of nutrients and saturated with herbicides and pesticides all of which results in minimal nutrients in the produce grown, any non polluting method should be carefully considered.  If that method actually can grow nutritious produce at a competitive price point, then it doesn't matter too much what it is called.  Most of our health problems are caused by an overabundance of chemical laced vitamin and mineral deficient foods.  Add in all the unnatural genetic modifications and extensive processing for corporate profit, it won't be long before that field grown broccoli is not suitable for human consumption.