Posted on 05/24/2017 12:05:53 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced Clearwater Organic Farms LLC, the nation’s largest hydroponic commercial greenhouse, will locate its operations in Monroe County. The company will build a 15 acre, 650,000 square foot facility at Eastman Business Park. It will produce locally grown, organic baby leaf greens year-round. The project will create 137 new full-time jobs in packaging, shipping, receiving and warehousing; 55 of those jobs are reserved for veterans or those who are underemployed.
“The new Clearwater Organic Farms facility will drive innovation, create jobs for New Yorkers who need them most and bolster economic growth throughout the region,” Cuomo said. “Our economic strategy continues to generate new activity, attract high-growth industries to the region and build momentum to move the Finger Lakes forward.“
The on-site process will use hydroponics to offer an organic alternative to current market supplies. It intends to build a clonable, scalable and sustainable food source system that can be replicated throughout the U.S. and the world.
“We are very pleased with the level of support that we’ve received from the state of New York, Monroe County and County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency to bring innovative and leading technology to the Finger Lakes region,” said Phillip Theodore, CEO of Clearwater Organic Farms. “We’ll be providing pesticide-free, fresh, locally grown and organic produce on a year round basis to the consumers in a 40-mile radius of the city of Rochester.“
Empire State Development offered up to $4 million in Upstate Revitalization Initiative funding and $2 million in Excelsior Jobs tax credits, which are tied to creating more than 135 new jobs, in order to encourage Clearwater Organic Farms to build in the Finger Lakes region. The total project cost is approximately $50 million.
The controlled environmental agriculture facility uses 90 percent less water than field grown alternatives, 20 percent of the land and uses sophisticated computer systems to control plant growing conditions, plant quality and energy usage. Clearwater Organic Farms is an indoor facility and a vertically integrated operation with seeding, growing, harvesting, washing, packaging and cold storage on-site.
“When we set out to plan and design Clearwater Organic Farms, Rochester, our goal was to build a world class baby leaf production facility using state-of-the-art process technology and grow science that would both be environmentally and socially responsible,” said Peter Ciriello, of Clearwater Organic Farms. “We recognized that we could create real value in growing and providing fresh, local and safe baby leaf vegetables and herbs to the local markets and still have a project that would be energy efficient and one that would provide job and career opportunities for workers that might not otherwise be able to work in food production.
We appreciate the support we have received from the state of New York, Monroe County, the town of Greece and our many strategic technology and commercial partners to make Clearwater Organic Farms in Rochester a reality.”
They will switch to growing weed as soon as it becomes legal.
I hope these are not the same “greens” that my elementary school tried to force feed me two times a week during the 1950s.
Seriously, no one in my class would touch them.
They went straight from the kitchen, to our plates, to the trash can.
I wonder about the nutritious value of those plants when grown without direct sunlight. What vitamins will they be lacking? Will the plants test for fluoride?
I’ve seen these kinds of facilities popping up all over the place.
If they work as advertised—and likely there are a lot of bugs yet in them—they represent a very large agricultural revolution—one so large it promises to significantly help feed the extra 2 billion people on the planet in 40 years.
So much better than the winter cardboard tomatoes of the past sold in a tube.
Vitamin C is about the only vitamin associated with this fruit...which they say is actually in the berry family.
Hydroponics has been around for quite a while.
A greenhouse uses the sun to grow the plants, not lights.
Not everbody chooses to die an early death by avoiding real food.
>> It will produce locally grown,... <<
Does any farm produce vegetables grown somewhere ELSE?
>> hydroponic... organic <<
Thus only revealing what a silly concept “organic” is.
>> 55 of those jobs are reserved for veterans or those who are underemployed. <<
... I suppose they could recruit other company’s employees, but I imagine most people who begin entry-level farm jobs are underemployed.
>> I wonder about the nutritious value of those plants when grown without direct sunlight. What vitamins will they be lacking? Will the plants test for fluoride? <<
The sun isn’t the issue... hydroponic, greenhouse veggies receive sunlight. The issue is the absence of dirt. Hydroponic vegetables contain whatever minerals their “matrix” is injected with. And only those minerals.
In the late ‘80’s, in a visit to Epcot Center, they touted that they had hydroponic gardens providing vegetables for the restaurants.
Broke arse NYS gives $6 mil in sweetness to grow lettuce indoors, in the frozen north country snow belt of Monroe County? WTF?
200 buildings in the old, broke down Eastman (Kodak) park. Lots of mold is growing in Rochester now. I guess not much work to grow some bigger greens . . .
Hope those “Greenhouse” roofs can still hold the lake-effect snow load.
New York . . . it’s a state of mind.
Hydroponics has been around for quite a while.
..........
Agree. Greenhouses too. But its the scale of both greenhouse and hydroponic farming that’s getting attention. Further, hydroponics & large scale greenhouse farming is only one branch of a larger movement called vertical farming.
I think they will all together put a lot of california vegetable farmers out of business in ten years and change the world in 20.
As an example of greenhouse agriculture—Europe gets about half of their vegetables from a large concentration of greenhouses in coastal Spain just on the Mediterranean side of the straight of Gibraltar in Almeria coastal desert.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3040757/look-at-the-endless-sprawl-of-greenhouses-that-cover-spains-desert
Canada already sends the USA more tomatoes peppers and cucumbers than the USA sends to canada
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/16/473526920/how-canada-became-a-greenhouse-superpower
There is also a greenhouse revolution in Russia.
https://www.freshfruitportal.com/news/2015/02/27/russias-greenhouse-revolution/
they are rapidly becoming vegetable independent
http://www.freshplaza.com/article/173915/Russia-serious-about-upscaling-greenhouse-production
But I think this is only phase one of a larger movement to vertical farming—since greenhouses tend to be only one story tall. What vertical farming will do is enable cities to grow their own vegetables and in time maybe fruits. I think that field crops are too low margin to be profitable for vertical farming.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/05/17/986832/0/en/Vertical-Farming-Market-to-exceed-13bn-by-2024-Global-Market-Insights-Inc.html
Donald Trump creates THOUSANDS of U.S. jobs, just by becoming president.
Governor Cuomo Announces a hydroponic greenhouse, 137 jobs.
Eastman Business Park, Formerly “Kodak Park” used to have 30,000 jobs.
What other types of jobs will Coomo announce next? Algae farms? Solar panels? Pussy hats?
I used to walk past Kodak Park on my way to high school. A city unto itself. With it’s own power plant, railroad, sewage treatment plant, and it’s own full time fire department.
Kodak has 8,000 employees worldwide; it had 145,000 at its peak.
OUCH!
Welcome to liberal run New York
And after the conversion to marijuana they will increase employment threefold thanks to the demand in NYC for superweed.
Imagine all those yuppies in ritzy sections of NY with a legal dealer in reach. They will have a new smog problem.
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