Vertical farming in LA to help solve food challenges

Wendy was inspired by her daughter and co-founder, Tara Coleman, to start LA Urban Farms. "I had never even heard the term vertical farming before, and my daughter Jessica, at the time, was at NYU creating her major all about sustainability," Wendy tells In The Know. "She talked to me about the importance of vertical farming and how it could help to feed our growing population, and so I thought, 'What if everybody's front yard was an edible front yard instead of ornamental? That would solve a lot of problems.'"

The mother-daughter duo started out small with a few vertical farms in their backyard, but quickly expanded to work with businesses and restaurants across Los Angeles. "On the old Google building in Santa Monica, we put 24 gardens on that rooftop and it was the first of its kind," Wendy recalls. "We started just going to local restaurants in Santa Monica and meeting with chefs and inviting people to come to the rooftop to see it. We started just giving the produce away and sharing our passion for what was happening on that rooftop. And that's really how our business began."

LA Urban Farms uses a vertical farming system that utilizes aeroponics to grow plants without the use of soil. Demonstrating how the vertical farming system works, Tara tells In The Know, "The water on the base will shower up and shower the roots every fifteen minutes off and on. And just like our cities that are growing up, these gardens are growing up, and so there's this opportunity to think about all these unused spaces that are around us, and how we can reclaim them to grow local health food in abundance."

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Photo Courtesy of LA Urban Farms

Source: Yahoo News