The indoor vertical organic farm is putting roots down

Inside of a nondescript warehouse on S. Oxford Street near the Shirlington Dog Park, Area 2 Farms is growing — both produce and as a company. Racks of green-leafed, brightly-lit veggies are stacked on top of each other. Water pipes twist between the planters. The smell of soil permeates the space.

Some of what is being grown is familiar to the average supermarket-goer, like carrots, arugula, and tomatoes. Others not so much.

Co-founder Tyler Baras hands over a green leaf with a warning. It's fish mint, he says, and tastes exactly what it sounds like it would. He's right.

There are also buzz buttons, the inside of a flower that tastes like a cucumber with honey, and foliage that's reminiscent of Luxembourg cheese.

The aim of this community-supported indoor urban farm in Arlington isn't just to deliver freshly-picked produce to customers within a ten mile radius — Arlington, Alexandria, parts of Fairfax County, and D.C. — on a weekly basis. It's also about fostering a relationship between the community and the farmer.

"People want to know where they are getting their food from," Baras tells ARLnow. "People can come get a tour of the farm, meet me, and have a relationship."

Baras and his co-founders aren't the only ones that think a local indoor vertical organic farm is a good idea. Today, Arlington County and the state announced a pair of $40,000 grants that will provide Area 2 Farms with for a total of $80,000 in public funding.

"It is always exciting when successful entrepreneurs like those behind Area 2 Farms bring their ideas and technologies to help grow Virginia's largest and oldest industry, agriculture," said Va's Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry at the press conference this morning revealing the grant. "This project adds to the region's growing cluster of innovative, indoor urban agricultural operations and shows us how the Commonwealth's oldest industry will remain a vital and growing part of the Virginia economy going forward."

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Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

Source: HortiBiz