Area indoor farms see growth in pandemic
Distribution disruption, focus on sustainability give businesses boost.
Hydroponic and other indoor farm produce businesses are expanding in the Miami Valley and facilities say COVID has impacted business in ways good and bad.
When the pandemic first hit, some facilities saw nearly all their restaurant clients shut down over night. But as the pandemic went on, distribution of produce from the West Coast began to be interrupted and some grocery stores increased their orders with local growers to fill the void.
Facilities include a Bright Farms greenhouse across from the Wilmington Air Park in Clinton County; 80 Acres Farmin a former industrial building in downtown Hamilton,
and Davidson Family Growers, a century-old New Carlisle family farm also growing with hydroponics. TAC Industries, a Clark County agency for the mentally and physically disabled, TAC Farm sand grows hydroponic lettuce for area restaurants.
“This is defifinitely a growing area,” said Felix Fernando, past co-chair ofMontgomery County
Food Equity Coalition and Assistant Professor of Sustainability and Coordinator of Graduate Certificate in Sustainability at the University of Dayton.
The facilities were begun as some consumers and investors saw hydroponic farming as more sustainable — food grown locally
requires much less transportation.
“It reduces our dependency on areas further away,” Fernando said.
Hydroponic crops are grown in liquids that carry mineral nutrients, and often are grown without pesticides. The systems are not necessarily organic — that depends on the nutrients used — and that the facilities can be costly to build and operate. The vastmajority of produce in the U.S. is still grown using soil.
Still the global indoor farming technology market accounted fornearly $6.5billion in 2017 and is projected to reach nearly $15.3 billion by 2024, according to a 2018 ZionMarketResearchreport.
Supporters of hydroponic produce say themain benefifit is the reduced transportation costs. Produce can be delivered locally overnight, and hydroponic fruits and vegetables raised regionally allowproducers, stores and customers to “try to build a local relationship,” Fernando said.
Miami Valley indoorfarming endeavors
In Clark County, Davidson Family Growers in New Carlisle is doing traditional farming as well as hydroponic farming.
For the Davidsons, traditional farming began in 1886. Kevin Davidson got into hydroponics in 2015.
InMarch, when COVID-19 fifirst struck, businesswasdevastated.“Thatwasabigproblem. I lost 90% of my business in three days,” Davidson said in a phone interview last week.
Restaurants and customers, includingUD, shut down on the same weekend, he said.
Davidson, whohasanengineering degree from UD, said hydroponic demand has picked back up since he began concentrating on selling through online farmers markets.
He said revenue is back to where it was in the spring, although more labor is required to ready his produce to be dropped off at distribution hubs in Columbus and Cincinnati, where it is redistributed to buyers’ doorsteps.
Davidsonsells lettuce, kale andcabbage products raised through hydroponics.
In Hamilton, 80 Acres Farms operates two locations, including one in a formerly dilapidated historic building at 319 South 2nd Street in the city’s downtown.
The business also operates froma Cincinnati location. At an automated facility on Enterprise Drive in Hamilton, leafy vegetables, herbs and strawberries are raised. The former Miami Motor Car Co. building in downtownHamilton is used to raise vine crops, including tomatoes, cucumbers
and peppers.
1M pounds of greens grown each year in 2-acre greenhouse
BrightFarms has seen demand jump 40% between August 2019 and August 2020, according to CEO Steve Platt.
Grocery stores sought alternatives for produce when supplies from the West Coast were disrupted in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Platt said.
Since March orders from independent retailers’ rose 71% andorders fromWalMart rose by 23%, according to BrightFarms.
“Nowwith the pandemic, people are eating more at home. They are looking for local projects,” Platt said in a phone interview.
Investors in BrightFarms include Cox Enterprises, which also owns the Dayton Daily News, Springfifield
News-SunandJournal-News.
BrightFarms lettuce, spinach and basil are available in Fresh Thyme, Meijer and Sam’s Club stores in the region, along with about 100 independent retailers.
Six days a week, seeds are plantedalong withpeatmoss and vermiculite in furrowed Styrofoam boards, roughly 1,000a day. Plantings reflflect orders over the next three weeks.
After germinating, the boards are set atop one of nine 110,000- gallon ponds in a two-acre indoor growing area.
“Surprisingly they don’t use a lot of water,” plant managerBrian Stephens said during a tour of the Wilmington facilities.
Thematuringplants, flfloatingontheboardinthepools, are next transplanted to a grid stretching toward the harvesting end of the greenhouse. After 15 to 21 days, the plants are harvested — sheered of stems and roots, and shipped, usually the same night, according to Stephens. The discarded parts are given to area farmers and used to feed livestock.
The growing area is heated, while cool air is pulled across the plants through automatedsystems. Shades control the amount of natural sunlight brought through a glass roof, Stephens said.
About 2,000 pounds of leafy greens a day are shipped.
Founded in 2011, BrightFarms operates farms in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio. A fifth is under construction in North Carolina. Each serves amarket within a days’ drive of the company’s 26-foot trucks.
BrightFarms is looking to add fifive to 10 employees to the 32 nowplanting, harvesting and trucking the products from Wilmington.
The $10 million facilities sit on three of 10 acres, leaving roomfor expansion. The company is looking at doubling in size.
“We’re very much about the future. It’s a sustainable business,” Platt said.