The farming community is continuously seeking new ideas and methods for increasing yields as climate change and population growth stress food production. A local entrepreneur is taking one farming method to a new level in Caledonia.
“I like to say all good ideas start over a good beer.”
As Executive Chairman of Grand Rapids-based Founders Brewing Company, John Green knows his beer, and he and his buddies also have a thing for lettuce. They’re not thrilled about the quality of produce at their local grocery stores.
“Wilted and brown and sticky and gross and not wanting to buy it. We said there’s got to be a better way. So, we looked at a number of different systems. We looked at vertical farming. We looked at growing within shipping containers, and ultimately we determined the best viable option, and one that was scalable, was hydroponic farming using a deep-water culture system.”
Now, as CEO and Chairman of Revolution Farms in Caledonia, Green tells me its currently growing six varieties of fresh, high-quality lettuce.
“We have Red Oak, Green Oak, Bibb, Romain, Sweat Crisp and Arugula. The big difference is that we don’t have soil in any part of our process. So, we’re growing lettuce and herbs and micro-greens on water. Essentially, in rafts that float on the water. The rafts th at we put in on one end, that’s where the germinated seeds, they’re in the form of a plug, go into the raft. Each raft has either 18 holes or 36 holes. As they mature they’re pushed down the lane, and at the end of the lane which is a 42 to 45 days process from start to finish, you’ll see the harvesters pulling those rafts out and putting them on conveyer belts and immediately shipping them off into the very cool harvest room where they are harvest and put into bags or clam shells and shipped out in a cold environment.”
“We use 90 percent less water, 90 percent less land and about 95 percent less miles travelled if you think about the trucks that have to ship lettuce from the West Coast.”
In this one acre, how much are you putting out compared to another acre of farmland?
“We are growing about 8,000 pounds of lettuce per week. So, if you do the math that’s about 400,000 pounds a year.”
Compare that to the average farm?
“I believe it’s for one acre of greenhouse we’re effectively equal to 80 acres of farmland and the big difference, of course, is that we can grow 12 months out of the year which is a big difference in the state of Michigan.”
And there’s another 44 acres available for expansion.
Patrick Center, WGVU News.