CEO Insights From Vertical Harvest: January 2021

Vertical Farming & Affordable Housing

View fullsize

As many of you may know, Vertical Harvest is a business dedicated to impact. As we develop plans for our expansion, we seek out strategic partnerships to cultivate and enhance the impact our model of farming can have on communities.

I’m thrilled to say that last year, we completed a feasibility study to co-locate vertical farms with affordable housing. The results are nothing short of potential paradigm shift in the way we grow food for urban food deserts. Our model outlines a new way forward for enhancing community through innovation. We studied in detail how two such projects would work in two Chicago sites prime for new ways to increase health and wellness.

Funded by a contract award from Fannie Mae, and in collaboration with National Affordable Housing Trust Mercy Lakefront Housing, and GYDE Architects the study explores the development of a robust, holistic model to address healthy housing and food system inequities. It also explores ways to create a source for consistent, meaningful employment for underserved populations — something we know a lot about. 

The study results present a business case to co-locate Vertical Farms and Affordable Housing. It successfully 1). quantifies the positive impacts on the low and moderate-income residents and broader community 2). confirms financial and operational feasibility 3). explores a variety of funding mechanisms to support co-location 4). further develops an employment model that serves under-served populations and 5). explores securing commitment from developers and investors. 

Addressing housing, good food, and job creation at a commercial scale, the study essentially writes a holistic prescription for empowered, healthy, sustainable, and connected communities across the nation.

You can read the full study by clicking the button below 

So what’s next? 

In order to have substantial impact, our plan requires policy change, private and public financial support, and guidelines to create an integrated future that includes both healthy housing and food. We are partnering with local stakeholders to make this a reality. 

We are working on it. Stay tuned.

Read Full Report

View fullsize

Commercial Urban Farming Course

Our online Commercial Urban Farming Course includes more than 2.5 hours of video learning - broken down into 6 comprehensive lessons - each lesson made up of digestible 5-10 minute modules.

Additional resources will help you translate insights into actions.

And finally, after completing 4 lessons, you’ll unlock a free webinar with one of our expert consultants.

Grow Plants Indoors All Year Long With Hydroponics

December 3, 2020

A simple DIY hydroponics system for growing lettuce and other greens

Are you looking for:

View fullsize

• A new winter hobby?

• Access to fresh greens or herbs throughout the winter?

• A fun project for kids?

• A unique holiday gift idea?

Hydroponic gardening checks all of these boxes! Hydroponic gardening allows you to grow greens and herbs all winter long indoors and can be done easily and affordably.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. Usually, hydroponic production is done indoors, but it is also an excellent method for gardeners with a balcony or limited access to gardening space outdoors. This method uses less water than soil-based gardening, allows for faster growth and often higher yields, and requires few materials.

Check out our new webpage to learn

more about whether hydroponic gardening is for you!

Turning Your Home Into Your Main Food Producer

The coronavirus has led countless Americans to rethink how they cook, eat and source food, both to expand their supply and connect to community.

Gardening has long been a hobby for Jason McCune, which at least partly explains why the coronavirus pandemic has turned him into a thyme farmer.

It started in early March when coronavirus prompted a run on hand sanitizer and Mr. McCune, 39, happened across a YouTube video on the disinfectant qualities of thyme. He also learned, via a YouTube video sent to him by a friend, that the essential oil of thyme, an antiseptic, might help fight respiratory illnesses.

“I thought, if I grow a lot of thyme and drink thyme tea, it certainly won’t hurt,” said Mr. McCune, an engineer at a compost heat-recovery company who lives in Richmond, Vt. He and his wife, Ellen, an early-childhood educator, run a preschool out of their home, but with the school now closed indefinitely, they’ve moved out the children’s dining and play tables and converted the dining room into a thyme greenhouse with a 4-foot by 10-foot bed of seeds.

“I’ll dry the thyme, share it with friends and we’ll make an apocalypse tea blend,” he said.

As isolation orders across the country stretch into their second month and grocery stores race to restock shelves, Mr. McCune has joined countless Americans who are making changes to how they cook, eat and source food to expand their food supply and connect to community.

“Stores weren’t anticipating the sort of stocking issues they were going to have,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), partly because of hoarding, but also because so many people normally rely on restaurants to feed themselves.

“Fifty percent of what U.S. households spend on food happens away from their home,” Mr. Glauber said. “So all of a sudden, when they can’t eat away from home, they’re having to go to the grocery store and buy a lot more food.”

The research institute has reported that Covid-19 does not pose a threat to the global food supply, but shoppers have been stocking up nevertheless — sales of consumer packaged goods rose more than $8.5 billion during the two-week period ending March 21, according to the Nielsen Corporation, the global market research company.

Whatever the method, many Americans are looking for ways to expand and enrich what they normally eat. Google searches for the term “home farming” jumped 50 percent in March; “how to raise chickens” spiked 75 percent.

“I feel like I no longer know the availability of things from week to week,” said Kate Bertash, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice Beach. An avid pickler, she now makes sure her regular C.S.A. box — a package of farm-sourced vegetables delivered each week — includes items that can be salted or preserved, and her “rot closet,” a dedicated kitchen cabinet for fermenting vegetables, is full. “Pickling and fermenting is really cool because you can be more flexible with what’s available,” she said.

Phyllis Davis, president of Virginia-based Portable Farms Aquaponics Systems, said its web traffic has doubled since the coronavirus outbreak. The company offers clients at-home farming kits, with online instructional courses on assembling its portable system and understanding aquaponics, a process of growing food using fish excretions as fertilizer. “Food security and sustainability are a very hot topic right now,” Ms. Davis said.

David Siegel, a dietitian who lives with his wife and 5-year-old son in a railroad-style apartment in Brooklyn, has begun hosting online chats about aquaponics. Mr. Siegel, 40, got a home fish tank a year ago, both to have something beautiful to look at and to fertilize herbs and vegetables. He initially tried tropical fish because of their bright colors, but found them too hard to care for. Now he has goldfish in a 20-gallon tank in the apartment’s central room, pumping nutrient-rich water into a multitiered system above with lettuce, basil, parsley and arugula.

Mr. Siegel said he doesn’t grow nearly enough food to feed his family, but as he has cut back on trips to the store, his fresh vegetables have made meals much tastier. “We say, tongue in cheek, that this is a pandemic hobby,” he said. “But right now we’re stocking up on frozen goods and canned and dry goods, and we’re able to supplement, especially with the herbs. It’s adding some much-needed freshness to our diet.”

For some, the pandemic has added a new immediacy to old hobbies. Stephanie Gravalese, a freelance writer in Delmar, N.Y., is quarantining with her partner, Max Clement, who is immuno-compromised and not leaving the house. Mr. Clement, 32, has always dabbled in baking. Now he’s making sourdough loaves every day to share with friends who have lost their jobs. The couple is also producing homemade vinegar, pastas, ricotta and liquors, much of which they trade for other goods. The couple’s front porch has become a contact-free swap zone, where they put out their creations for local bakers and farmers, who in turn leave them fresh meat, raspberry bars and lemon bread.

“Baking, and creating anything we can share is creating community for us right now,” Ms. Gravalese, 36, said. “It’s also turned the kitchen into a very special place for us. Right now, the center of our lives is in the kitchen.”

A version of this article appears in print on April 12, 2020, Section RE, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Your New Main Food Producer? Your Home, Naturally.

By Debra Kamin | The New York Times | April 7, 2020