Category Archives: Startup Profiles
Startup Profiles
Online Urban Farming Course Crosses Continents, Seeks to Boost Number of Farmers Producing Food Locally
A three-quarter acre parcel of land in the city can be transformed into a successful urban farming business when combined with the right training. Or at least that’s the opinion of startup company GroAction, which offers an online class on the topic. About 470 people from around the world are now testing this theory. They are doing so through the Continue reading
Vertical Greenhouse Co. Seeks to Bring Fresh, Affordable, Low Carbon-footprint Produce to Urban Areas
Plantagon is a Stockholm-based urban agriculture company that strives to balance commercial and values-based forces to simultaneously achieve profitability and ‘do good.’ To do this, it has introduced the Plantagon Greenhouse, a vertical greenhouse designed to bring fresh, affordable, low-carbon-footprint produce to urban areas. According to the company, the greenhouses’ efficiency and high productivity make them economically viable – it’s Continue reading
Sustainable Ag Startup Sees Aeroponic Technology as Key to Re-integrating Agriculture into Urban Environs
Eating locally within a hundred mile radius is certainly an impressive feat. But imagine the convenience of picking fresh produce from a farm that’s only a hundred feet away, or even ten, while still living in a crowded city. The Waters Wheel, a Los Angeles-based company, aims to do just that by bringing the farm to your doorstep or rooftop Continue reading
Re-Imagining Agriculture Event in Los Angeles to Focus on Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship
(Los Angeles, CA, February 2, 2012) – A growing crop of agricultural entrepreneurs is beginning to sprout in Southern California. Compelled by a desire to meet the food and energy demands of a world population forecast to peak at 9 billion by 2050, these entrepreneurs are endeavoring to re-imagine a more sustainable, healthy and profitable future for agriculture – from Continue reading
Atlanta’s Bioponica Seeks to Close Loop on Hydroponic and Aquaponic Farming
The term sustainable farming has been creeping steadily into the vernacular, popping up in business plans, on food blogs, and at local farmers’ markets around the country. David Epstein, D.O. and Kenneth Lovell, P.E. of Bioponica™ hope to usher new farmers into the world of sustainable agriculture through their unique design and method of soilless, closed-loop, farming.
Wisconsin’s Future Farm Packs Sustainable Punch with Cow Powered Aquaponics Operation
The owners of aquaponics-focused Future Farm Food and Fuel, LLC know how to maximize their resources. The company’s operations take place out of a 27,000-square-foot greenhouse in Baldwin, Wisc., which houses fish tanks and growing bays that contain herbs and vegetables. Tubes run back and forth between the tanks and growing bays, recirculating water, otherwise known as effluent.
Denver’s Waste Farmers Bring Soil to Life
For John-Paul Maxfield, enriching the soil isn’t just a business. “If we’re going to feed 9 billion people by 2050, we’re going to have go find new methods. Soil has been neglected throughout industrial agriculture. Anytime we harvest, we take something away and our agricultural model has been that we don’t need to put it back. We’ve got to go Continue reading
By Maximizing Local Availability of Organic Produce, Three Brothers Hope to Influence the Future of Agriculture
Though the core values have remained the same, the conventions of organic farming have shifted and changed over time. The same can be said of Capay Organic, a second-generation organic farm located in the Capay Valley (northeast of San Francisco), with an offshoot in the Imperial Valley in southern California. It, and the brothers who took over running the operation Continue reading
California-based Flower Farm Grows Market for Organic Flowers One Bouquet at a Time
When you give a loved one a bouquet of flowers, do you want that gift to have a happy story behind it or a sad one? That’s a question posed by Marc Kessler, owner of California Organic Flowers, whose Chico, CA-based business grows USDA-certified organic flowers, arranges them into bouquets and mails them to customers all over the country. “If Continue reading
Local Urban Aquaponic Farming Model to Reduce Food Mile, Create Jobs, Enhance Food Security
On the Westside of Los Angeles, in the Mar Vista district, urban farming organization, EVO Farm, is utilizing aquaponics to create a replicable and sustainable farming model that will facilitate the creation of a network of local urban farms that grow and distribute produce that exceeds organic standards. “Who would want a big giant farm in one place when you Continue reading
To Propel Sustainable Agriculture, Earthfort Looks to Biology to Help Farmers Improve Soil
There are many factors farmers can’t control, but Earth Fortification Supplies Co. is trying to help them get a handle on the things they can—the biology of their soil. The Corvallis, Oregon-based company, better known as Earthfort, boils down its practices into three words: educate, evaluate and remediate. The company tests soil samples from around the world, determines the problems Continue reading
Online Training Guide Provides Future Farmers Tools to Profit from Small Plot Intensive Farming
The founders of the SPIN-Farming, short for S-mall P-lot IN-tensive farming, recognize that the face of agriculture is changing. “For the first time in history the vast majority of tomorrow’s farmers will have to come from non-farming backgrounds,” said SPIN-Farming co-creator Roxanne Christensen. “City folks will have to be trained to become farm folks because there simply aren’t enough farm kids out there to Continue reading
To Create Sustainable Food System, FarmsReach Focuses on Tools to Help Farmers Streamline Business Operations
When FarmsReach launched in 2007 it sought to facilitate connections between farmers and buyers by focusing its efforts on resolving food distribution issues with an online portal to help local farmers get their produce into the hands of consumers and address the increasing demand for organic regionally grown food. But after the product scaled to 26 states, at a time Continue reading
In Demand Worldwide, Portable Farms Seeks to Address Food Supply Issues and Profit with its Aquaponics Systems
Is life sustainable in the 21st century and beyond? That’s the question Colle Davis, inventor of Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems, posed in a recent article. In it, he writes that the answer is no, that “Life as it has been known in the Western world is coming to an abrupt and chaotic end. There is no way to stop the Continue reading
Burgeoning San Diego Startup Slings Locally Grown Hydroponic Butter Lettuce with Roots Intact
Pierre Sleiman of Go Green Agriculture has turned a seed of teenage curiosity into a full-grown farm. The Sleimans have never been farmers. When a friend proposed the idea of a hydroponically grown farm to Pierre’s father about ten years ago, he quickly brushed off the idea. However, fifteen-year-old Pierre saw potential. “From that point on, I have been interested Continue reading
Tech Startup Brings Transparency to Food System with Online Tools to Track Food from Farm to Table
Select any item on Jacksonville, Fla.-based Bistro AIX’s online menu and you can trace which farm or producer the ingredients came from. With a few more clicks on the food source’s profile, you can even learn more about what the grower does and the practices used in raising the animal or crop. This service is provided to Bistro Aix and Continue reading
