One of the things that I miss most about living in the deep south is butter beans. As close as anyone gets up here on the far edge are lima beans and they’re vastly different and not nearly as tasty.
Last January I wrote a small article about BrightFarms building greenhouses on the roofs of grocery stores. Until recently, the company’s experiments were limited to a handful of stores fairly close to its New York, NY headquarters.
But now that’s changing according to a Pioneer Press report by Frederick Melo. Stillwater, MN-based Cub Foods, the warehouse grocery chain, is collaborating with BrightFarms and a local produce distributor to carry locally-grown produce year-round. Departing from its rooftop greenhouse model, BrightFarms began construction on a 38,000-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse last month.
The greenhouse is going up behind produce distributor J&J Distributing, on Rice Street, in Saint Paul. J&J Distributing received US$500,000 for the greenhouse construction through Saint Paul’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. The program is part of President Obama’s economic recovery initiative and administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development – Recovery Act Community Development Fund (CDBG) Formula Grant Program Recovery Plan.
Melo reports that Cub Foods expects to begin selling more than 350,000 pounds of produce from the 0.87-acre BrightFarms greenhouse each year. The greenhouse will cost between US$1.5 million and US$2 million to build and the endeavor will add six full-time, living wage jobs in the city.
The hydroponically-grown produce, while not being organic, will be grown using less water and land than traditional field farming. “Growers will drip collected rainwater onto the plants and recirculate it, using 4.5 million fewer gallons of water for the same yield,” writes Melo. Because the produce won’t be trucked halfway across country, less pollution will be created.
According to BrightFarms chief executive Paul Lightfoot, its produce prices will be comparable to organic produce (that is, higher than traditionally-farmed produce) because “the greenhouse will enjoy fewer economies of scale and higher labor and capital costs than a mega-farm….”
Here’s hoping there’s at least a few butter bean patches amongst all that lettuce and tomatoes.
Related articles:
- Oh Atlanta
"Oh Atlanta, Oh Atlanta! I said yeah! yeah! yeah! Atlanta, - Take your war toys and leave
Several nights last week, black and mostly unmarked combat helicopters - I love the smell of fascism in the morning
A total of five people have been arrested after three - The poor are here; where are the republicrats
A few years ago, cries of "Stop the war -- - Shaking it with St. Paul & the Broken Bones
Paul Janeway -- a preacher's kid from Birmingham, AL --
Use of the ARTS & FARCES internet RSS and Atom feeds are subject to syndication and copyright policies and are provided for individual, noncommercial use without license or fee. All other uses are prohibited without an appropriate license.
Maybe there’ll be butter beans in Saint Paul was originally published by ARTS & FARCES internet on Thursday, 5 July 2012 at 1:59 PM CDT. Copyright © ARTS & FARCES LLC. All rights reserved. | ISSN: 1535-8119 | OCLC: 48219498 | Digital fingerprint: 974a89ee1284e6e92dd256bbfbef3751 (64.237.45.114)