Vertical Farm Reaches New Heights
About 60 miles from the Environmental Standards Valley Forge, Pennsylvania headquarters, a huge farm is going UP in Bethlehem. In a recent article, Kurt Bresswein of Lehighvalleylive.com reported that Bowery Farming Inc. (Bowery), the largest vertical farming company in the U.S. is building its fourth and biggest facility.
Bowery builds indoor farms with vertically stacked crops – floor to ceiling. A variety of greens grow year-round, hydroponically under LED lights that mimic sunlight, energy efficiently and by recapturing nearly all the water that the crop plants use.
Bowery broke ground on a 1,000-acre component of the Bethlehem Commerce Center on the former Bethlehem Steel foundry site. The article highlighted comments made by Pennsylvania State Senator Lisa Boscola. “Additionally, it bears highlighting that Bowery Farming is located on the former Bethlehem Steel site, once the largest single-owner brownfield in the country,” Boscola said in a statement. “Think about how far we have come in just two decades since the Steel closed down, a farming operation is moving in.”
In our 34 years of operation, throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, Environmental Standards has transformed many brownfields into productive sites that benefit those communities. This Bowery project is a great example of what’s possible. Sometimes a brownfield can literally become a greenfield.
