Editor’s note: The story has been corrected to properly describe the indoor farming operation.
The next head of lettuce or bag of leafy greens you buy might have been grown locally in a massive greenhouse east of Atlanta.
New York-based Gotham Greens announced Wednesday it opened a large indoor farming facility in Monroe, which will employ up to 100 workers. The $35 million greenhouse is the company’s first location in the Southeast and will join Gotham Greens’ network of high-tech greenhouses that can produce up to 100 million heads of lettuce a year.
Indoor farms insulate crops from unpredictable weather and allow for more consistent harvests in hot and humid climates. They also are able to increase produce production on smaller pieces of land. Gotham Greens’ 210,000-square-foot warehouse in Monroe is located on a 36-acre plot along Piedmont Parkway.
Credit: Gotham Greens
Credit: Gotham Greens
In addition to using less land, indoor farming requires much less water than traditional methods. These facilities typically use between 90% and 95% less water than open fields.
“While field crops are especially vulnerable to the elements such as heavy rains or drought, the fully closed greenhouse system provides protection and reliability,” Gotham Greens said in a news release.
Founded in 2009, Gotham Greens supplies lettuce to more than 6,500 retail stores across the country, including Whole Foods Market, Publix, Harris Teeter, Kroger and The Fresh Market.
Agriculture is Georgia’s largest industry, valued at more than $74 billion annually, and the state is beginning to receive indoor and vertical farming infrastructure and investment.
In January 2022, New York-based Bowery Farming announced a vertical farming project in Henry County. Six months later, Ohio-based 80 Acres Farms announced a $120 million facility in Covington that will grow fruits and vegetables indoors.
Cox Enterprises, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s parent company, is an investor in emerging agriculture sectors. The company announced in June an investment in Mucci Farms, a greenhouse and indoor farming company based in Canada.
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