Aglanta: breath of fresh air for CEA industry

Aglanta is now finished, yet the urban agriculture sector is still buzzing about the conference. Follow up posts are getting shared like wildfire, and feedback has indicated the conference was a badly needed breath of fresh air for the CEA industry.

Agritecture / Blue Planet Consulting approached the conference with the goal of creating an authentic event that connected the CEA community with the Atlanta community. To achieve that goal, our modus operandi for the conference was to have Aglanta be affordable, accessible, and protected from excessive sponsor influence.

Aglanta was also organized by the Mayor’s Office of Atlanta and by platinum level sponsor and local utility company, Southern Company. Thanks to the generosity of all organizers – a $27,750 check was given to a local urban farm, Truly Living Well.

Also thanks to their efforts, 272 people from the community, and from across the world, gathered in downtown Atlanta for the conference.

Joining the guests, Truly Living Well, and the hosts were 9 community partners, 15 exhibitors, and keynote speaker, the remarkable Stephen Ritz.

Stephen delivered an impassioned speech with many references to the good folks at Truly Living Well who have worked so hard to improve their community. Stephen got the crowd chanting in a gospel-like manner, and received a thunderous standing ovation at the completion of his talk.

Stephen meets with folks from Atlanta’s Education System after Aglanta

But equally important to all of the positivity surrounding CEA’s potential, is that entrepreneurs and business owners who aim to build at scale must anticipate what challenges their vertical farm is likely to face. We all know farming is hard work, but we don’t all know what other risks and strains are out there.

WATCH THE FULL AGRITECTURE LIVE BROADCAST OF SHUTTERED VERTICAL FARMS

For that reason, Agritecture’s Community Manager, Andrew Blume, moderated a panel titled: An Examination of Shuttered Vertical Farms. The panel included:

Matt Liotta, CEO, Podponics
Mike Nasserri, Harvest Supervisor, LocalGarden
Paul Hardej, Co-Founder, FarmedHere

Each of the panelists was open and honest, delivering their battle-hardened knowledge to the crowd as well as to the live-streamed video, which has already generated 1.5k views. A videographer’s version of the footage with professional video and audio will soon be released as well.

Following the conference, was an invite-only breakfast at the Museum of Design Atlanta. Georgia’s commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black spoke for some time about the promise of CEA in Georgia, and then yielded the beautiful space to high-quality networking.

Gary Black - Agriculture Commissioner, State of Georgia addressing MODA Guests

All in all, the conference was a huge success. Hosts, exhibitors, and participants have so much to follow up on – and all signs point to more growth to come in Atlanta.

Christine Zimmerman-Loessl, Chairwoman of the Association for Vertical Farming with Mario Cambardella, Atlanta’s Director of Urban Agriculture

Text and images courtesy of Agritecture