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Sky Vegetables: A brilliant notion

Posted by: Maven on September 9, 2008 at 1:36 pm

From the Cooking Up a Story website:

One of the big challenges facing our modern industrial food system is the heavy reliance upon fossil fuels for the growing of crops, and the transporting of them long distances to market. An average head of lettuce travels 1500 miles before reaching the supermarket shelf, a longer distance than many of us travel on vacation. But what if our fresh produce could be grown in the supermarket, the same destination point where it eventually would be sold?

One enterprising, 22 year-old University of Wisconsin—Madison business student, Keith Agoda, came up with the idea to grow fruits and vegetables on the rooftops of supermarkets after a trip to Chicago where he witnessed first-hand community gardens feeding local area residents. Thinking back upon an earlier trip to South America where he experienced fresh produce from street vendors throughout Buenes Aires, he began thinking about how to grow food efficiently without the need for land. This led to the idea for Sky Vegetables, the creation of an urban agriculture firm that specializes in the building and managing of rooftop gardens for sale of produce to supermarkets situated directly below.

Working on his business plan for college credits, along with fellow university student Troy Vosseller together they submitted their plan into the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition, an annual competition to choose the best start-up ideas by a panel of four judges.

Sky Vegetables works with hydroponics, 4 times less weight than traditional soil, an important requirement considering that weight is a critical factor for a a greenhouse structure designed to fit on a 40,000 square foot rooftop. Hydroponics, a nutrient rich solution, can be precisely monitored, and kept in balance, to provide upwards of 5 to 15 times the equivalent yield from that of farmlands, and produces significantly less pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Sky Vegetables design also uses recycled rainwater for irrigation, organic nutrients for the hydroponic soils, and solar panels for energy production, allowing for year-round, and sustainable production in most types of climate.

What a great idea! Read the rest of this story from Cooking Up a Story by clicking here. Visit the Sky Vegetables website by clicking here: www.skyvegetables.com

Hat tip to the Aguanomics blog & the Sisweb for this one – which, by the way, if you haven’t checked out both of those websites, you really should!

September 9, 2008 · Filed Under Innovative Ideas

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