Green Sense Farms expands in China and US

Green Sense Farms started in March 2014 in Portage. With rows of towers stacked high with leafy greens growing under the pinkish glow of LED lights — all inside a climate-controlled facility — Green Sense can produce year-round with a much smaller footprint than a normal farm.

It's a way of farming that will provide a great service in China, says Robert Colangelo, Green Sense "founding farmer" and CEO. And it will also provide a service in South Bend when it opens a vertical farm in partnership with Ivy Tech in the next year.

China has had some vertical farms, Colangelo says, but they are small, show farms. Green Sense will be a large-scale commercial farm producing consistently, he says.

The first China farm will produce 750,000 to 1 million heads of lettuce and about 1.5 million leafy greens per year. It's a production level slightly less than the 20,000-square-foot Portage facility, but it's still the start of making a beneficial change in China's food production.

China is not the only area where Green Sense is expanding. South Bend will see one of the vertical farms popping up this fall. Green Sense is partnering with Ivy Tech Community College on a $3 million, 20,000-square-foot farm to be built at 250 E. Sample St.

The contract is in the final stages of negotiations, Colangelo says, and they hope to break ground in August or September with the farm being complete in the first quarter of 2017.

Source: South Bend Tribune