Our project is going to integrate farming to downtown locations by revitalizing abandoned industrial buildings. In doing so, we'll be developing high tech, indoor urban farming facilities, which will operate sustainably. Growing indoors allows for year-round production, much higher efficiency than traditional farming methods, greater yields, and minimal transportation costs.

Using aquaponics (growing vegetables with fish), food can be grown in a symbiotic closed loop system without the use of herbicides or pesticides. With the integration of engineering, robotics, and computer control systems the bottom line of this project is to produce ZERO WASTE and utilize off-grid energy.

To start scaling towards creating an entirely sustainable farm within a building, we're going to design and construct a self-sustaining farm within a 20 foot shipping container. Inside the shipping container, we're going to develop our proprietary system to grow high-end restaurant greens in which we'll be able to sell directly to downtown restaurants.

With the shipping container being located in a downtown setting; we'll be able to virtually eliminate transportation of fresh produce and all the costs associated with it, including the carbon footprint. Using this proof-of-concept, we're going to demonstrate the positive effects of farming in the city and scale the technology we develop in the shipping container to a full sized farm.

Our project is becoming increasingly integrated into the Grand Rapids entrepreneurial ecosystem. We've already developed a great relationship with the Start Garden team, and we're communicating and collaborating with additional GR companies including: Thinkbox Creative, the Elemental Project, and the Urban Renaissance Group.

By 2050 there will be over 9 billion people on the planet. There isn't enough arable land on earth to feed that many people. We are creating the solution, we are starting now, and we want to do it in Grand Rapids.