Plenty is no ordinary farm.
Instead of growing greens outdoors, the farm grows its food on glowing, LED-lit 20-foot-tall towers inside a former electronics distribution center in South San Francisco. The towers don’t require pesticides or even natural sunlight.
The technique is called indoor vertical farming, a type of agriculture in which food grows on trays or hanging modules in a climate-controlled, indoor facility. The process could one day upend the world of agriculture, because it means certain types of food could be produced year round, anywhere, in a small space.
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Some experts say the funding could help the indoor farming industry as a whole. Dickson Despommier, a professor of microbiology and public health at Columbia University, told [Business Insider] the investment will make indoor agriculture even more commonplace, and encourage other [venture capitalists] to fund vertical farm companies.
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Vertical farming has attracted increasing interest from venture capitalists in recent years. Founded in 2004, vertical farming company AeroFarms is growing dozens of varieties of greens in nine warehouses (the largest at 69,000 square feet) in New Jersey, and has raised $95.8 million to date. Another startup, called Bowery, has raised $20 million since its early 2017 launch.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Investors are sinking hundreds of millions into a technology that could revolutionize the way we eat
