In the industry, much is being said on how to feed the world sustainably by growing indoors. Yet, one of the difficulties is making sure people outside the industry are aware of this. One of the companies taking this challenge by heart is AppHarvest. This week their vision on growing food safely has made it into Rolling Stone Magazine.
The American monthly magazine is one of the world's most well-known magazines. Currently, the magazine focuses on music, politics, and popular culture, and we can all agree that horticulture checks all those boxes somehow - or at least AppHarvest does. CEO Jonathan Webb explains in the article how they do an 'all hands' every now and then, which is a pep rally to boost employee morale via rock concerts and games of corn hole, and a chance to give back to his community of workers.
Aside from that, the team also knows how to make horticulture sound rock and roll, as becomes clear in the final paragraph of the article.
Outside his RV, he gets agitated, quickly tossing a football between his hands and pacing between a picnic table and his fire pit.
“We’re literally trapped here on Planet Earth unless you’re the billionaire that’s going to spend $28 million to go fly with Jeff Bezos. Like, are you fucking kidding me? The rest of us, and I would put myself in that camp, although things are changing financially every day, I’m not flying off Planet Earth.”
Webb punts the football he’s been spinning, and it arcs toward AppHarvest and the hills behind it.
“Help!” he shouts, looking at me, and then up to the sky. “Help Planet Earth survive so we can stay here.”
He looks frazzled, and he looks like he means it. In Kentucky, Webb isn’t short on disciples. The picnic table could be a pulpit. The gleaming glass of AppHarvest could be his congregation. The tomato could be an apple; the apple could be capitalism; capitalism could be the original sin. The original sin could be the pathway to a better future, or it could just be another LED-lit mirage.