{"id":64296,"date":"2023-03-01T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=64296"},"modified":"2023-03-01T10:38:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T15:38:47","slug":"vertical-farming-vertical-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/vertical-farming-vertical-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"In Vertical Farming, the Sky’s the Limit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Winters in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, are long, and the growing season is short. A head of lettuce travels an average of 2,000 miles to get there, often arriving shriveled and tasteless. This video tells the story of architect Nona Yehia, who thought there must be a better way for residents to get fresh produce. But when she wanted to turn a sliver of town land into a \u201cvertical\u201d farm, many were skeptical. It took her seven hard years of researching, fundraising and persuading local politicians, and in 2016, Vertical Harvest<\/a> finally opened \u2013 the first vertical farm in the northern hemisphere. Today, the farm produces lettuces, tomatoes, microgreens and more, supplying restaurants, shops and the community with hyper-local, super fresh produce, no matter the weather outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nona Yehia, Vertical Harvest \u2013 \u201cFarming the Sky\u201d Picture Lock<\/p>\n

PIX: Establishing shots of Vertical Harvest exterior and farm; restaurants using their lettuce; Nona entering Vertical Harvest building.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWe can take away a lot of the pressures that exist right now in traditional farming. We can create the perfect environment that the crop needs to grow.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tThese are the most pampered plants you'll ever meet. And we can get this food at the peak of its nutritional and taste value to people, from farm to fork within 24 hours. <\/p>\n

L\/T:\tNona Yehia \u2013 CEO \u2013 Vertical Harvest Farms<\/p>\n

Nona:\tThe way a head of lettuce gets to your and my plates is it travels, on average, 2,000 miles. So by the time it gets to our forks, it's depleted of its nutritional value, and it really doesn't taste like anything. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona driving in Jackson Hole; photos of Penny and Caroline; Nona walking through Vertical Harvest building.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tNona is an architect in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tIn 2009, she met Penny McBride, a sustainability consultant<\/p>\n

TEXT:\t\t\t\tand Caroline Estay, who helps people with disabilities find jobs.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tThey wanted to build a greenhouse that would supply fresh produce year-round for the town.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tCaroline, she was looking for consistent, meaningful work for her clients. She said, \u201cHey, if we get this off the ground, would you employ my clients?\u201d Obviously, that resonated for me in a big way.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tPhotos of Nona\u2019s brother Nabil.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tNona\u2019s brother, Nabil, was born with serious developmental issues. <\/p>\n

Nona:\tMy brother defined our lives in so many different ways. He was always going to need us and we were always going to need him. I was an advocate before I even knew what the word meant. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tStills of early construction site; Nona observing lettuce ladders.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tThe women found a small lot downtown. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tIt was just 30 feet wide by 150 feet long.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWhen we looked at that sliver of land, we really did scratch our heads. We said, \u201cWhat could happen here?\u201d That's really where the idea to go up came from.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona in microgreen farm.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWe packed as much as we can into this space. So there's 5,000 square feet of growing area within this one room.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tConstruction stills.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tHere we were, three women, not from Wyoming, who wanted to be farmers, and none of us were farmers! Yeah, I think there was a healthy skepticism that was in the community.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tBin 22 restaurant exterior; diners enjoying meals inside; Nona speaking to owner Gavin and chef Luis.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tFor 7 years, Nona worked to win the support of local politicians, investors and restaurant owners. <\/p>\n

Nona:\tIt is a good conference room.<\/p>\n

L\/T:\tGavin Fine \u2013 Owner \u2013 Bin 22<\/p>\n

Gavin:\tI can kind of remember somewhat saying, \u201cThat sounds fucking cool\u2014pardon me\u2014but how the hell are you going to do that? Where are you going to do that?\u201d Or, \u201cHow is that going to happen? How do we do that?\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cLet me come back to you in a little bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWe needed the town in order to access the public money that we were targeting. The first meeting didn't go so well, but I said, \u201cLet's have another one,\u201d and we continued. We worked on it. They listened to me. I listened to them. And we won by one vote.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tSnowy view of Jackson Hole; still of opening day at Vertical Harvest.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tVertical Harvest finally opened in 2016 \u2014 the first vertical farm in the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona visits employee Johnny, who is seeding a tray.<\/p>\n

Johnny:\tI\u2019ve been here since it opened.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWhat are you seeding right now, Johnny?<\/p>\n

Johnny:\tI'm seeding Toscano.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona in farm explaining irrigation system.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWe are able to feed the plants through an irrigation system. So you can see on the end here, that's where our water comes through. And these, all of these trays are slightly canted so that the water just comes through using gravity, and it feeds all of these pampered plants. Right? Exactly what they need to grow.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tShots of employees packing and tending to plants; shots of lettuce farms.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tThe farm grows 100,000 pounds of produce a year in a perfectly controlled environment, without pesticides.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tSo you're creating the right temperature, the right humidity, the right nutrients, and really allowing for a crop to just concentrate on growing. Their only job is to be as nutrient-dense and as tasty as they can be.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona chatting with employees at a large table, the different parts of the farm<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWe grow lettuce heads, we grow baby greens and microgreens. Microgreens are greens that have just sprouted their leaves. Micro basil, micro arugula, micro wasabi; really, the sky is the limit. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tMicrogreens have 40 times the nutritional value of the full grown plant.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona speaking to Luis at Bin 22.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tNobody had really heard about micro greens except for the chefs, right? <\/p>\n

L\/T:\tChef Luis Hernandez<\/p>\n

Chef Luis:\tOne of my favorite products was the popcorn shoots.<\/p>\n

Gavin:\tYeah.<\/p>\n

Chef Luis:\tI really liked, like, the sweetness and crunchy.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona visits the chopping and packaging floor and speaks to manager Robin.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tSo how many, how many sheets are you able to process an hour now?<\/p>\n

L\/T:\tRobin Van Houten <\/p>\n

Robin: \tThat's a great question. I mean, we are doing a few hundred per day, and getting done by 1 o\u2019clock. So it\u2019s not quite 100 per hour, but it\u2019s approaching that. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\t17 people with disabilities have steady jobs at the farm. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona talking with employees.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tWe learned how to grow together. Our biggest challenge has been the pandemic. Understanding how to grow while protecting our employees, who are very vulnerable. People with disabilities have been shown to be more vulnerable to Covid.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tEmployees packing and shipping plants.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tThe employees were considered essential workers.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tThe company\u2019s schedules allowed for social distancing and the farm remained open. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tNona observing lettuce farm.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tSo over there you can see our little robot that measures the humidity and the temperature within the growing environment and that interacts with the whole computer system of the farm. So the misting will go off every 2 to 5 minutes to keep the humidity level correct for the plants that we're growing here.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tMountain and river scenery shots.<\/p>\n

Nona:\tEnergy issue is really one of the main criticisms of vertical farming, and we've addressed that in multiple ways. As the grid gets greener so are we. As we expand, we're looking at partnerships with renewable solar farms, wind farms, but we're offsetting so many other things. The food miles, the runoff, the damage to our water systems; the fact that in the drought that we're in right now, 90% of the lettuce that we all consume is vulnerable right now and might not even be able to make it to shelves.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tStills of Maine construction site; Jackson Hole site.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tVertical Harvest has broken ground on a much larger farm in Maine. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tIt is slated to open in 2023. <\/p>\n

Nona:\tOur farm here in Jackson Hole is really like our lab. People want to know who's growing their food. Our farms are beautiful buildings that you can see in and understand how we're farming, why we're farming, and who is farming. <\/p>\n

Sue:\tIt's the end of family farm?<\/p>\n

Nona:\tI think it's the new kind of family farm!<\/p>\n<\/p>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n \"A\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n \n In Maine, Seaweed Farming Helps Save Jobs and the Planet\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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