Old New Jersey Factory to House Earth’s Largest Vertical Farm | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

groin, field trip!

Opening this year in Newark, this 69,000-square-foot space will grow 2 million pounds of pesticide-free produce each year, turning an old steel factory into the largest indoor farm on the planet, 75 times more productive per square foot than open fields. This AeroFarms facility is to serve both as the company’s global headquarters as well as the anchor project for a Maker’s Village designed to grow business in the city and provide a prototype for scaleable urban agriculture.

Plants rooted in reusable microfleece cloth and stacked in modular planters will be sprayed by a nutrient mist and illuminated by LED lights. These crops require no soil, 95% less water and create no harmful runoff.  Located on a 3-acre industrial site in the Ironbound neighborhood, the structure will expand the role of affordable and local urban farming in the community and provide nearly 100 long-term jobs for residents. Such an approach offers a new potential future role to rundown industrial districts around the world, turning unused infrastructure in struggling cities into fresh indoor farming space.

more http://weburbanist.c.....ical-farm/