US (IN): Organic vertical farmer grows tailor-made plants
Partlow says he has the modest of goal of ending hunger. And he’s being taken very seriously.
The bioscience company last month won two awards at the SXSW (South-by-Southwest) convention in Austin, Texas, the first contestant to win both the Food+City Challenge Prize and the People’s Choice Award.
“One of our biggest goals is to end food insecurity within our lifetime,” said Partlow, 49, an Indiana University graduate from Anderson. “We had to create a system that anyone could afford and use.”
Now, Aggressively Organic is preparing to move into its own 40,000-square-foot building at 9160 Ford Circle later this month, where it will grow 6 million plants each year. It hopes to hire 200 employees within five years and have 42 indoor farms of various sizes across the country.
The concept is the same as hydroponic systems, also known as vertical farming, that are sprouting around the country and grow crops indoors year-round in controlled settings. But unlike those farms, in which thousands of shelves are stacked in large warehouses for wholesale distribution, Aggressively Organic’s plants are tailored for the individual, with the plants grown in cardboard, flower pot-sized containers.
Read more at the Indy Star (John Tuohy)