Virginia-based company Beanstalk is repurposing a data center in Herndon into a vertical farm using its proprietary technology to produce a variety of greens and vegetables currently sold to supermarket chains such as Harris Teeter as reported by the Data Center Dynamics.
The 71,000 sqft facility built in 1985, though being adapted for a data center has several similar requirements to data centers in needing ample power, water, and air conditioning in large spaces, as well as backup power sources notes the DCD in a previous article.
The article states that “Beanstalk Farms is receiving a $100,000 grant from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund, and Fairfax County will contribute $100,000 as a local match to expand the vertical farming company. Herndon officials said Beanstalk will invest over $2 million and create 29 new jobs as it moves its headquarters to the new site.”
Virginia has had a fair bit of indoor vertical farming activity in recent weeks with the grand opening of Aerofarms’ newest vertical farming facility (Considered as ‘the largest vertical farm in the world’), FresH20 acquisitions by Gotham Greens following Gotham’s Series E funding round (Gotham Greens is a New York based Greenhouse farm that has experienced exponential expansion in recent weeks), and the upcoming event around controlled environment agriculture co-organized with Virginia Tech and Indoor Ag Con.
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