Can Urban Farming Go Corporate

Can Urban Farming Go Corporate?

By Nicholas Kusnetz for Reuters

July 19, 2012

Farmshave sprouted in cities across the country over the past several years as activists and idealists pour their sweat into gritty soil. Now Paul Lightfoot wants to take urban agriculture beyond the dirt-under-your-nails labor of love. He wants to take it corporate.

In June, Lightfoot's company, BrightFarms, announced a deal with The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., or A&P, to provide New York City-grown vegetables to the local chain's supermarkets year-round. The goods will grow in what the company says will be the country's largest rooftop greenhouse farm, a high-tech hydroponic operation that will boost yields, allowing the company to face-off with organic vegetables trucked from California, cutting thousands of miles from the supply chain while aiming to provide a fresher product at a competitive price.

With similar deals announced for St. Paul, Minn. and Oklahoma, BrightFarms is looking to tap into the local-food zeitgeist nationwide and create a more efficient produce mass-market. With some notable exceptions, urban farms have largely been non-profit, community-based endeavors, aiming to provide healthier food as a public good. The few for-profit operations have been mostly small and local. Lightfoot has grander ambitions.

"We're not trying to change the fringes of the supply chain," he said. "We want to change the supply chain itself."