In 2017, AeroFarms received a $2 million grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), a nonprofit organization created in 2014 via the Farm Bill, to improve the characteristics of plants grown indoors to feed urban populations.
As of 2021, AeroFarms already had nine farms and was working on building a tenth. They state that they can go from seed to harvest in 15 days with their patented technology.
In a March 2021 SEC document pertaining to a potential merger between AeroFarms and Spring Valley Acquisition Corp, which later fell through, the CFO of AeroFarms highlighted their experience with advanced genetics, noting that:
“To be clear, we are a technology platform, not a conventional greenhouse grower using off-the-shelf equipment. We have had over 250 invention disclosures to date, a number which is constantly growing. We have grown over 550 different varieties of plants to date. We also see an addressable market in advanced genetics, using our platform for speed breeding and other genetic development work in plants . Here, we are a Founding Member of the Precision Indoor Plants Consortium and Principal Investigator for its first and largest project in lettuce. With this partnership, we work alongside companies like BASF to utilize our platform to optimize new genetics. Another example has to do with CRISPR-Cas9. If you’re not familiar, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 went to the developers of CRISPR-Cas9, which is a genetic editing tool where scientists are able to pull out a genetic trait in a genetic sequence. Using our platform, we co-developed the first CRISPR-Cas9 produce product .”
In February 2022, AeroFarms partnered with Silal, Abu Dhabi’s leading fresh produce and agri-tech company, for a longterm research and development of transferring technology and data analytics of high tech farming systems. The goal is to improve the genetics and seedling quality of vegetables and fruit. They may also work with international consortia on developing new genotypes of crops.
AeroFarms serves grocery stores, distributors, and online grocers, some of which include:
Amazon Fresh
Baldor Specialty Foods
FreshDirect Express online grocerShopRite
Singapore Airlines
Stop and Shop
Walmart
Whole Foods
They have both commercial and research and development farms in:
Ithaca, New York
Newark, New Jersey
Danville, Virginia
Abu Dhabi
Community Farms
AeroFarms also partners with schools to teach students how to harvest their own greens. They’ve partnered with the World Economic Forum to bring community farms to Jersey City through a vertical farming initiative.
They’ve raised $238 million in funds from 13 investors:
21Ventures
Abu Dhabi Investment Office
AllianceBernstein
Cibus Fund
David Chang
Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research
GSR Ventures
Ingka Group (parent company of IKEA)
Meraas
Middleland Capital
MissionPoint Capital Partners
Newark Venture Partners
Wheatsheaf Group Ltd
According to Venture City, Ingka Group kicked them off with $500 million.
80 Acres Farms
80 Acres Farms was founded in 2015 by Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston and is a private company headquartered in Hamilton, OH. They provide fruits and vegetables to over 600 retail and food service locations. Their robot-powered indoor farms are said to produce 300 times more food than a conventional farm , while using 100% renewable energy and consuming 97% less water. Their farms are powered by Infinite Farms, a company out of the Netherlands that provides complete design/build services for turn-key automated indoor farms. Aside from 80 Acres Farms, Infinite Acres partners are Netherlands-based Priva Holding BV, and UK-based Ocado.
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80 Acres serves over 600 retailers, grocers and national distributors , including:
Dorothy Lane Markets
Jungle Jim’s Markets
Kroger
Kroger – Ocado Solutions ecommerce channel
Restaurants
Sysco
The Fresh Market
US Foods
Whole Foods
Krogerhas been selling their greens and vegetables at 32 of their stores, and in 2021 expanded to 316 additional stores after a 15-month pilot program. These stores are all located in:
Alabama
Arkansas
Indiana
Kentucky
North Carolina
Ohio
They’ve raised $250 million in funds from 10 investors:
Barclays
Beyond Net Zero
Blue Earth Capital (backed by Partners Group and Wietlisbach Foundation)
General Atlantic
Orange Wings Capital
PG Impact Investments
QuietStar Capital
Siemens Financial Services
Taurus
Virgo Investment Group
AppHarvest
Founded in 2017 by Jonathan Webb, AppHarvest is a public company headquartered in Morehead, Kentucky. They have one of the biggest greenhouses at 2.76 million square feet on 60 acres where they solely grow tomatoes . In September 2020 they acquired Novus Capital and in April 2021 acquired Root AI. They also invested in Red Sea Farms in August 2021.
AppHarvest’s tomatoes can be found at Kroger, Meijer, and Walmart .
They’ve raised over $566 million in funds from 9 investors:
Endeavor Catalyst
Equilibrium Capital
Fidelity Management and Research Co.
Inclusive Ventures
Narya Capital
Revolution
Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund
S2G Ventures
ValueAct Capital
Top shareholders:
Inclusive Capital Partners LP
BNP Paribas Asset Management UK
The Vanguard Group, Inc.
BlackRock Fund Advisors
Bowery Farming
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Founded in 2015 by Brian Falther, David Golden, Irving Fain, Bowery is a private company based in New York, New York.
To provide a little bit of perspective as to just how big these indoor vertical farms are, Bowery Farming, who declares themself to be the largest vertical farming company in the U.S., recently announced it’s expansion into Arlington, TX, just outside of Dallas, to erect their newest “smart” indoor farm that will serve 16 million people within a 200-mile radius . What makes this facility so “smart?” According to Bowery, their farm is powered with 100% renewable energy, integrating software, hardware, sensors, computer vision systems, machine learning models, and robotics – all to “orchestrate and automate the entirety of operations.” Despite this full automated operation, they state it will provide jobs for 100 people when they open their doors in early 2023. Of course, their overall goal is to produce “traceable,” pesticide-free food to every major city in the U.S. and throughout the world.
In February 2022, Bowery acquired Traptic, a company that builds giant farming robots.
B ased in New York City, Bowery already has facilities in :
Kearney, New Jersey
Nottingham, Maryland
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Arlington, Texas coming soon
Locust Grove, Georgia coming soon – to serve the Atlanta metropolitan area
Bowery has been serving e-commerce platforms plus over 800 grocery stores, including :
Acme (164 stores)
Amazon Fresh
Giant Food
Safeway (111 stores)
Specialty Grocers
Walmart
Weis
Whole Food Markets
They’ve raised over $646 million in 8 rounds of funding from 35 investors :
Adam Eskin
Almanac Insights
Amplo
BoxGroup
Chris Paul
Evolution VC Partners
Fidelity Management and Research Co.
First Round Capital
Flybridge
Gaingels
General Catalyst
GGV Capital
Google Ventures (GV)
Groupe Artemis
Henry Kravis
Homebrew
Jonathan Golden
Jose Andres
Justin Timberlake
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Lerer Hippeau
Lewis Hamilton
Matt Salzberg
Natalie Portman
Neil Blumenthal
Red Swan Ventures
RRE Ventures
Sally Robling
Sand Hill Angels
Scott Belsky
SV Angel
Temasek Holdings
Third Sphere
Tom Colicchio
Wiley Cerilli
Hydrofarm Holdings
Founded in 1977 by Peter Wartenberg, Hydrofarm is a public company headquartered in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania. They are a distributor and manufacturer of controlled environment agriculture equipment and supplies which includes vertical farming, and saw a 28.1% net sales increase in 2021. They distribute to the U.S. and Canada.
Between 2017-2021 Hydrofarm expanded by acquiring Eddi’s Wholesale Garden Supplies, Greenstar Plant Products, Heavy 16, House & Garden, Aurora Innovations, and Innovative Growers Equipment.
Top shareholders:
Wasatch Advisors Inc
The Vanguard Group
BlackRock Fund Advisors
They’ve raised almost $123 million in funds from 4 investors:
Broadband Capital Investments
Hawthorn Equity Partners
Serruya Private Equity
SternAegis
InFarm
Founded in 2013 by Erez Galonska, Guy Galonska, and Osnat Michaeli, InFarm is a private company based in Berlin, Germany.
They use hydroponic farming in grocery stores so that the produce grows on site. They completed over 500 installations in stores and distribution centers in various parts of the world and in 2019 partnered with Kroger to do installs in QFC supermarkets in Washington state. In 2020, they expanded to QFCs in Oregon as well.
They’ve raised over $604 million in funds from 23 investors:
Archimedes Labs
Astanor Ventures
Atomico (Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom’s investment firm)
Balderton Capital
Bonnier Ventures
Cherry Ventures
EASME – EU Executive Agency for SMEs
EuropeanPioneers
FoodLabs
Hanaco Venture Capital
Haniel
Horizon 2020
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Latitude
Lightrock
LocalGlobe
Mons Investment
Partners in Equity
Qatar Investment Authority
Quadia
Star Farm Ventures
Tres Monos Capital
TriplePoint Capital
Iron Ox
Founded in 2015 by Brandon Alexander and Jon Binney, Iron Ox is a private company headquartered in San Carlos, California.
Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures invested $50 million in Iron Ox, a company that builds robots incorporated into hydroponic systems. These robots are equipped with sensors to detect nitrogen and acidity levels in water. Iron Ox runs farms in Northern California and Lockhart, Texas .
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They’ve raised over $103 million in funds from 20 investors, with Gates’ company accounting for nearly 50% of the funding:
7percent Ventures
Amplify Partners
Anorak Ventures
At One Ventures
Avant Global
Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Cherubic Ventures
Colin Carrier
Comet Labs
Crosslink Capital
Eniac Ventures
Formic Ventures
Greg Castle
Innovating Capital
i/o Ventures
Pathbreaker Ventures
R7
Tuesday Capital
Vijay Pradeep
Y Combinator
Plenty Unlimited Inc.
Founded in 2014 by Jack Oslan, Matt Barnard, Nate Mazonson, and Nate Storey, Plenty is a private company headquartered in San Francisco, California. They use hydroponics to grow their leafy greens.
“At Plenty, we’re proud of the fresh, flavorful greens we grow in our farm, and of our transparent growing process, which lets us track a plant from seed to kitchen .” – Nate Storey, co-founder and chief science officer
Video: Vertical Farms Could Take Over The World | Hard Reset
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In this video, Nate Storey says “We don’t have the land, the resources or the ability to compensate with high nutrition food.” Gosh, what happened to all of the farmland? The narrator of the video goes on to say, “picture a scenario where we got rid of all the traditional farms and replaced them with vertical farms …… this is the kind of technology and efficiency we’ll need with the Artemis base on the moon and eventually on Mars.”
Plenty serves over 430 Albertsons supermarkets in California, including Safeways and Vons, with facilities in Compton and San Francisco .
In 2020, they worked their way into some of the Whole Foods Markets in the Bay area .
In January 2022, Walmart announced its longterm partnership with Plenty with a $400 million investment, allowing for Walmart to source Plenty’s produce for all of their California stores, and Walmart also gets a position on Plenty’s Board of Directors.
Plenty’s produce can also be found at retail outlets in other California locations such as Berkeley Bowl, Good Eggs, Bi-Rite Market, and the robotic restaurant called Creator. Their website also links to online ordering at Good Eggs, Instacart, and Amazon’s Fresh Market, where you can find Plenty’s products.
Plenty’s goal is to erect 500 vertical farms in highly populated, urban areas around the world .
They’ve raised over $940 million in funds from 13 investors:
Bezos Expeditions
DCM Ventures
DCVC
Driscoll’s
Finistere Ventures
Innovation Endeavors (Eric Schmidt)
JS Capital Management
Kirenaga Partners
Louis Bacon
One Madison Group
Pete Flint
SoftBank Vision Fund
Walmart
Upward Farms
Founded in 2013 by Ben Silverman, Jason Green, and Matt La Rosa, Upward Farms is a private company headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Though they currently only have 5 investors, they recently announced their plans to build the world’s largest indoor vertical farm in Luzerne County Pennsylvania , capping out at 250,000 square feet, by 2023.
They’ve raised over $140 million in funds from 5 investors:
Founder.org
Neue Fund
Prime Movers Lab
Recharge Thematic Ventures
Steve Jurvetson
Giant Greenhouses
In addition to all of the vertical farms going up, giant greenhouses are being erected as well. Much like AppHarvest in Kentucky, Rhode Island Grows is in the process of building one in Exeter and some Rhode Islanders aren’t too happy about it. The company projects they can yield up to 650,000 pounds of tomatoes per acre, with a goal to expand to 350 acres in five years and eventually take over 1,000 acres. Their plan is to serve six states between Boston and New York.
Over in Virginia Beach, fmr Gov. Ralph Northam announced in April 2021 that Sunny Farms, LLC will invest $59.6 million into a 120,000 square foot hydroponic greenhouse at Taylor Farms, with the plan to expand to 32 acres of building space. They will begin with lettuce and eventually grow vegetables as well.
In 2021, Shenandoah Growers, Inc. rebranded themselves as Soli Organic and plan to expand from seven farms to fifteen farms utilizing their proprietary soil-based controlled-environment system for indoor agriculture. Moving to this ESG based strategy has brought in additional investors, including Bill Gates’ Cascade Investments. They’ve also brought on key executives formerly from Starbucks, Walmart, and Postmates.
Gotham Greens is producing produce in their climate-controlled, year-round rooftop greenhouses in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Chicago, Davis, Denver, Providence, and Queens. By adding the second greenhouse to Chicago, they’ve doubled their heads of lettuce production to 11 million heads per year. The Whole Foods building in Brooklyn is where they built their first one back in 2013, as the first giant greenhouse + supermarket combo.
Who Controls The Food Supply Controls The People
The squeeze has been taking place for decades, from the government stealing land to putting unrealistic restrictions and regulations on ranchers and farmers, controlling our free water – even rain water, selling out over 35.2 million acres of U.S. agriculture farmland to foreign investors, globalists like Bill Gates buying up hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, burning down food processing plants while manufacturing supply chain issues, and preventing transportation of critical farming supplies such as fertilizer – all while building indoor vertical farming backed by globalists as they role out new energy and infrastructure regulations. Whereas most people believe China has bought up much of U.S. farmland, they actually hold a small percentage as compared to Canada who holds the largest share, then the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. China falls last and a big chunk of it is owned by the WH Group (Smithfield Foods) in Missouri, who Corey’s Digs previously reported on.
The National Young Farmers Coalition estimates that two-thirds of farmland will change hands over the next decade due to farmers retiring. With all of the regulations, inflation, and supply issues, all of which has been manufactured, there is a heavy burden on U.S. farmers, and the globalists have carefully calculated their moves to bring in the vertical indoor farms and lab grown meat in typical savior style.
Forbes estimates over $20 trillion in investments are following ESG and socially responsible investment style factors, while BlackRock CEO Larry Fink insists that “it’s time to force people’s behavior to change,” to expand ESG investments even further. Despite the LED lighting, robotics, computer data analysis, and ventilation systems required to power vertical growing facilities of this magnitude, since water is being saved and less of Bill Gates’ land mass is being used, investments are flowing into these alleged sustainable and environmentally friendly facilities, as well as massive greenhouses.
While over 190 member countries of the World Health Organization move as briskly as they can to turn over power to the WHO in a global pandemic treaty to control the healthcare system, and demand global jabs and digital certificates, they’ve already rolled out the Rockefeller’s 10-year Global Genomic Surveillance Strategy . It’s all about genetics with these folks. Meanwhile, the U.S is trying to speed things up by using the International Health Regulations to make amendments . What happens if they roll out a mandatory digital ID (which is their intention) and inform all businesses, including grocery stores, that people are not allowed to enter without the jab or ID?
National Geographic believes that gene editing is the next food revolution, explaining that hundreds of research and development labs are testing CRISPR’s potential to produce faster growing food with all sorts of benefits. According to their 2018 article, they state that U.S. federal regulators are not requiring strict regulations and years of testing like they did with GMOs because the plants won’t contain foreign DNA. However, the European Union’s high court ruled to regulate gene-edited plants the same as GMOs.
Genetics, synthetics, and digital citizenry is marching its way forward and people are going to need to take a stand where they can, be aware of what they are buying, ingesting, and signing up for. Support and help farmers and ranchers as much as possible during these times. Building ones own small scale vertical indoor farm or greenhouse might be a wise idea. Families and communities growing food, building a homestead , and collaborating is a great step in the right direction. FarmMatch connects people with local farmers, and Seeds for Generations offers great heirloom seeds as well as free webinars and resources for building and growing your own food. The Solari Food Series and Food Risk Tracker also provide a wealth of helpful information.
There is no way to sugarcoat this system they are implementing. Whereas vertical farming is brilliant in many ways, and could be beneficial on a smaller scale in communities, the fact that this is the global agenda to remove farms and control all produce by the globalists themselves, makes is incredibly concerning. Imagine, in the not too distant future, going for a drive in the countryside (in your mandated electric vehicle) and observing dried up farmland replaced by giant turbines. It’s a very dystopian image that no one wants to experience.
We must work together to find a way forward and continue to say no to the digital ID they are creating to control our access and spending, while building self sufficiency and security together. If you have helpful resources or suggestions, please share in the comments below.
This report was sponsored by The Solari Report .