lovingly known to locals as jackson hole, the town is home to just over 10,000 hardy people who are willing to endure the area’s rough terrain, volatile mountain climate and other challenges—all of which create problems for feeding its residents and tourists year-round.

that’s where jackson hole vertical harvest comes in: it’s a small vertical farm that is the town’s only consistent source of food.

as an outdoor lover’s dream, tourists from around the world flock to jackson throughout the year to ski on world-class snow, climb the surrounding peaks, raft the snake river, and visit neighboring grand teton and yellowstone national parks. however, many of the area’s allures also act as a double-edged sword:

the scenic mountains? they drive up land prices, limiting the area in the valley usable for building a home. this has become such a problem that the median price for a single-family home in the area has reached a staggering $2.65 million, as estimated in a 2017 report by the casper star tribune.

its blankets of snow? they may be soft enough for a skier to fall in love with, but the unpredictable weather can make travel in and out of jackson difficult — and sometimes impossible.

beyond this, temperate summers have been a major draw for tourists in the area, but this also means that the area’s growing season is a mere four months long.

these factors make the feasibility of large, traditional farms in and around jackson nearly impossible, making locally sourced, organic produce completely absent from residents’ kitchens.

without healthy, fresh produce, jackson local nona yehia decided to make a change for her community by founding jackson hole vertical harvest in 2016. using a vertical form of architecture, jh vertical harvest has transformed a tenth of an acre on the southern side of jackson’s only parking garage into a 13,500 arable square foot garden.

the farm operates using hydroponic agriculture: a form of agriculture that does not use soil, but instead stimulates plant growth via nutrients in a water solution, yielding roughly 100,000 pounds of food over the course of an entire year.

the unique architecture paired with hydroponic agriculture makes fruits and vegetables readily available year-round, which are then distributed to local restaurants, markets, direct to consumers, and even the hospital in town. the university of wyoming is currently testing the farm’s lighting and water efficiency to analyze its carbon footprint, with preliminary tests indicating significantly lower emissions than industrial farming.

beyond the farming techniques and environmental data, jh vertical harvest partnered with cultivate, a nonprofit focused on job placement for people with different abilities, in order to serve the jackson community in a different way: among its staff are more than 20 individuals with varying mental and physical abilities and 18 more people in training.

“jh vertical harvest is not a company focused on food,” said joelle lazzareschi, cultivate’s employment and training director. “the company gives equal weight to the importance of local food production and social impact.”

when asked about the future of jh vertical harvest and their business model, lazzareschi laughed, saying,“we are one step closer to world domination in lancaster, pennsylvania.”

after residents of lancaster reached out to jh vertical harvest for help in building a vertical farm in their own community, they proved that they have “the land, capital, social capacity, and drive to make our model a reality,” lazzareschi said. “we are excited for the opportunity, no matter where it might be.”

worse yet, kathleen merrigan, gw’s executive director of sustainability and former united states deputy secretary of agriculture, said “we are increasingly importing during our own season, when farmers could be growing here.”

merrigan, who spoke at planet forward’s april 4 urban agriculture salon, encapsulated america’s tendency toward shortsighted food practices. 

many people have begun to look more closely at these practices, and are working to find solutions, because the bottom line of the issue is that this practice is incredibly harmful to the environment. the mass transit of food requires not only the energy to grow the product, but also the energy that is used to transport it to its final destination.

faced with this dilemma, some cities are turning to a unique solution: vertical farming. while vertical farms are not yet abundant, there has been a steady increase in recent years. there are currently six vertical farming operations in the united states, but soon to be seven, as missouri state university recently leased 21 silos in downtown springfield to a startup company that will use them for vertical farming.

the startup, called vertical innovations, plans to use the silos for lettuce, mushrooms and other vegetables. a couple of the silos also will be used for aquaponic and hydroponic experiments. the structures already built into the silo to move grain up and down provided an added benefit of assisting to move water throughout the structures. the silos, which for years sat empty aside from rotting grain, will hopefully be able to flourish, and the method replicated in other abandoned silos.

the practice of repurposing existing structures for urban farming is not uncommon. in chicago, a vertical farming operation and model for closed resource, waste and energy loops called the plant stands in an abandoned industrial building. located in the old meat packing district, the plant is growing food and generating business in an area that is considered a food desert. within the plant, there are more than a dozen small businesses, which include a bakery, kombucha and beer breweries, coffee roasters, and mushroom and aquaponics farms, among others.

another vertical farming operation is the farmery, located in raleigh, north carolina, and is based in old shipping containers. (check out their video on planet forward!) this system also uses a combination of aquaponics and hydroponics, and is capable of growing up to an acre of greens in a single shipping container. they developed a modular growing system, which allows for the plants to be moved. there is also a farmers market that they host, as well as a restaurant located in an airstream trailer.

america’s practices of importing produce from all around the world is clearly unsustainable, and an environmentally unfriendly system. unfortunately, as more and more of the country’s — and of the world’s — population moves to urban centers, the practice becomes more heavily relied upon, due to the lack of infrastructure in cities that could allow such food production to occur there. however, with the implementation of solutions such as vertical farming, we could find a more sustainable, eco-friendly solution to feeding our cities.

one solution put forward is a method for growing food vertically in enclosed, self-contained domes that also have the potential to absorb co2 (and generate valuable carbon credits) and locally produce mineral and nutrition-rich vegetables and fruit aeroponically. one estimate i read recently says that a one acre greenhouse has the potential to grow up to 20 times the produce an acre of land will produce using traditional methods. since plants are not grown in soil, greenhouse facilities can be located almost anywhere. these facilities will greatly reduce the need to transport produce long distances (the average produce travels 1500 miles in the us and an apple in canada for example, is transported more than 2500 miles) and offer the potential to reap huge returns to investors participating in the right projects.

a few companies have taken up this challenge to produce healthy and i would be interested in learning more about who they are and how they are addressing the challenge to reduce food without the use of petroleum products (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungacides, etc.).

how it’s done:
vertical agricultural systems, or tiered greenhouses atop city residential buildings, produce plants and possibly food using waste water from the same residential systems, or partially-filtered water from the treatment plant. using hydroponics, or water-only, soilless agricultural techniques, the plants grown here will receive nutrients through organic waste found in the untreated water. the plants will simultaneously filter the water of pollutants through the process of hydroponics.

the remaining water travels at high speeds down pips into the city pipe systems that lead to treatment facilities. on its way down, the pipe’s bore will be condensed in order to increase the pressure of the flow of water. additionally, the pipe will be fitted with a small turbine. nothing that will power the entire city, but a small generator to be used in conjunction with the residential buildings’ power needs. multiple hydroponic-hydroelectric treatment facilities operating on a number of residential buildings would reduce a substantial amount of wasted energy, produce and water previously unchecked by these buildings.

although radical in design, this approach may offer a solution to our ever-increasing amount of waste issues. the water filtered through hydroponic practice could reduce the energy required to filter untreated water at water treatment facilities. in order to ensure maximum energy efficiency, the technique presented calls for sustainable electricity production to be carried out in the process of it all. finally, an increase in locally-grown foods provides a more sustainable market in which local consumers will see more competitive prices for sustainably-grown local foods.

as always, government spending and individual investment in such projects is a concern. in order to ease the economic burden upon building owners and landlords, these projects could receive a government subsidy or even provide a tax deduction. economic incentives are crucial when it comes to implementing any form of change to an economically or lifestyle-sensitive community. in addition, the energy produced by such installations may be used to reduce energy bills of the residence. with the money they save, they will most likely stimulate some other sector of the economy, encouraging further economic development in their community and their country.