Marketing the urban agriculture revolution

Here partners Alan Rose, Myles Harston and Paul Suder with greens raised in their closed-loop systems. Photo by Courtesy Alan Rose.

The plants grow in approximately 18-28 days. Arugula, basil, different salad mixes – they grow very quickly.

By Emily Gadekand Michelle M. Schaefer
Medill Reports
Mar 04, 2011

Excerpt:

Let’s talk about indoor farming inside urban warehouses or sleek glass highrises in the canyons of crowded neighborhoods.

It may sound strange but that’s the idea behind vertical farming, a new way to grow food in the middle of and during any season of the year.

Northwestern University alumnus Alan Rose, a 1977 Medill journalism graduate, is at the forefront of this movement. Along with his partners Paul Suder, Paul Hardej and Myles Harston, he’s working to grow produce in the Chicago area using closed-loop technologies – including growing plants in air, and with a simulated ecosystem where fish provide fertilizer through their waterborne waste.

Rose and his partners are launching Here, a brand of vertically grown produce raised indoors, on March 17 at the Family Farmed Expo in Chicago. The partners are also collaborating on Cityponics, a company focused on helping would-be vertical farmers with equipment, locations, and even marketing. They’re hoping to have a vertical farm in a Chicago suburb operating by this fall.

Read the complete article here.