WESTBROOK, Maine — Vertical Harvest opened it's first vertical farm in Jackson Hole, WY in 2008. They set out with a mission to farm in an urban setting, and offer meaningful employment to people with developmental disabilities. There first location has been successful on both fronts, and they are bringing that mission to Maine.
Vertical farming is the fastest growing industry in agriculture. We talked with Nona Yehia, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vertical Harvest in Jackson Hole. "It's taking farming, and putting it inside a building, in our case a greenhouse....On a tenth of an acre, we grow the equivalent of ten acres of food." Part of the mission of Vertical Harvest is to employ people who have an intellectual or physical disability.
"The ripple effects in the community are many, and they are profound...It's a 70,000 square foot facility, we will have the annual output of a million pounds of produce a year, we are working with Maine's anchor institutions -- hospitals, schools, correctional facilities -- to put contracts in place to ensure the success of the project...we will be employing people from the local community and we will be creating 50 jobs there."
They hope to begin working on the project in the Spring of 2021, and open later that year, or early in 2022. If you would like to learn more about Vertical Harvest coming to Maine, you can click here.
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