“We‟re very proud of her,'' said Gene Giacomelli, director of the center.
The feeling is mutual.
“CEAC has to be one of the best things that ever happened to me,'' Nelkin said.
“Stay tuned. There is a lot more coming from them.”
The Controlled Environment Agriculture Center has been involved in such as ex-
otic endeavors as growing vegatables on the South Pole and planning a growth for a
lunar colony. The short course offers a practical application for growers and wan-
nabe growers.
“They want to learn how to grow in a controlled environment and how to make
money at it,'' Giacomelli said.
A number of attendees at the short course were already making money growing on
relatively small scale ventures.
Cash-flow positive
On a larger scale, Gotham Greens planted its first crop in May in 2011 in its 15,000
-square-foot space. “We are already cash-flow positive,'' Nelkin said.
The goal for us is to produce the highest quality product possible, '' she said.
“More than anything, that's what we care about. There's a compelling business
case for this.”
Gotham Greens is able to get its crops to market on the day of the harvest. Grocers
have given the company's products plenty of shelf space. And it doesn't take a lot
of growing space to show a profit.
“Vegetables are something of a specialty item,'' Nelkin said. “So the margins are
higher.”
Nelkin said that Gotham Greens sells not only to Whole Foods and other high-end,
specialty retailers, but to other tiers of grocers as well.
Besides the business case, there's also a compelling environmental case for grow-
ing in controlled environment. Gotham Greens recycles water, using about a 10
much as if it was growing outside on land. Less energy is used to take crops to mar-
ket. Yields are higher. Less land is used.
All that excites, Dickson Despommier, author of “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the
World in the 21st Century.”
The book evolved from a project in a class taught by Despommier, a Columbia
professor emeritus of microbiology.
Human feces problem
The point of departure was the spread of disease through the use of human feces in
agriculture.
“About half the world's population uses human feces for agriculture,‟‟ he said.
“It‟s almost like a plan designed by parasites.''
Farming in a controlled environment offers a host of benefits. “It's the difference
between riding in a car as a passenger and driving,''he said.
Despommier's students found over time that putting a greenhouses on rooftops was
a start, what would really make sense would grow vertically. But Despommier sees Nelkin and Gotham Greens as a great start in his home market.
It was a lack of space that first pointed Nelkin toward growing in a controlled envi-
ronment.
Nelkin majored in plant sciences at Arizona State University in Tempe and was
active in programs that involved building gardens in K-12 schools. At the time
there was a program called Science Alive that involved the Flowing Wells School
District in Tucson, the University of Arizona and growing plants without soil, or
hydroponics.
Nelkin had run problems with a lack of space for gardens at various times and saw hydroponics as an answer.
Continued next page
"It‟s the difference between riding in a car as a passenger
and driving.‟‟ — Dickson Despommier,
author of “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st
Century,”on the advantages of gorwing in a controlled envinronment