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One of the world’s most high-tech indoor vertical farms is right here in Southern California, in Compton.
I headed there to find out more about what role indoor farming may play in the future of food. As increasingly extreme weather driven by human-caused pollution in the atmosphere makes it harder — if not impossible — to farm outside in formerly high-producing regions, could farming indoors be part of the solution?
I admit I’m pretty skeptical of this high-tech farming. How practical is it? What are the tradeoffs? And how much does this farm really benefit Compton?
Those were the questions I wanted to answer as I pulled into the parking lot of a clean white warehouse in north central Compton. The formerly empty warehouse is across from a neighborhood and next to a larger industrial building and yard full of big-rig trucks.
Inside, is the flagship commercial-scale farm developed by San Francisco-based startup Plenty. It officially opened last May and is the West Coast’s largest indoor vertical farm.
When I walk in I’m greeted by cool air conditioning and Erin Santy, the company’s media liaison. She walks me upstairs to the mezzanine. From there, I can see huge robot arms moving tall, thin towers of greens.
When you say farming, this is not what I think of, but how cool that it can be? 50 years from now, what will people think of?
“When you say farming, this is not what I think of, but how cool that it can be?” Santy said. “Fifty years from now, what will people think of?”
Why farm indoors?
Within 100,000 square feet, the farm can grow some four million pounds of spinach, kale, spring mix and arugula every year. That amount adds up to about 16 million of those packages of greens we see at the grocery store. And it's produced within a much smaller area than what's need to grow the same amount outside.
They sell at Whole Foods, Bristol Farms, Gelson’s and most Walmarts in Southern California. They just launched a partnership with 7/11 to sell salads there too.
“We want to be able to deliver a locally grown fresh product and part of that is how do we get it closer to the people who are eating it?” Santy said. “Some of that is about growing in a more urban and dense area like Compton.”
She said the prices are on par with organic for now, since it’s so expensive to build these farms and they’re not common. But she said the prices don’t fluctuate like conventionally grown greens because they’re not affected by weather volatility or supply chain disruptions.
One of the biggest perks of indoor farming is that it can use as much as 98% less water than conventional farming, said researcher Shamim Ahamed, who studies advanced farming techniques at UC Davis. But he said the biggest drawback is that it also uses a lot of electricity. That’s because they need to use artificial light to grow the plants as well as keep specific temperatures inside.
“That's basically the prime reason for having a high carbon footprint,” Ahamed told LAist.
He said because the power grid is getting cleaner overall, that footprint will continue to go down. And there are lots of ways these indoor farms can use energy really efficiently or generate their own cleaner energy on site, Ahamed said.
Santy said Plenty used solar to generate their energy on their far smaller pilot farm in Northern California, but she said they didn't go that route for their Compton site because they don't have the space for the number of panels they'd need. She said the amount of electricity generated by putting panels on their rooftop would be essentially negligible and didn't pencil out. She added the current mix they're paying for from the power grid is currently about 40% renewable sources.
And, Ahamed pointed out, conventional agriculture also has a huge carbon footprint. Mostly due to land use changes, livestock and soil depletion, large-scale farming accounts for about a quarter of human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions and about 10% of the U.S.’ total greenhouse gas emissions.
But there are limits, at least right now, to what food can be farmed indoors in this way. Ahamed said indoor vertical farming works for certain crops, such as leafy greens, strawberries and tomatoes — crops that are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, he said.
While Ahamed said indoor farming can’t completely replace farming outdoors, he said it does play a role in the future of our food.
How the farm works
Before going inside Plenty’s Compton farm, we have to get dressed in full protective gear and sanitize everything.
The greens never get touched by human hands: The environment is kept so clean they don’t need pesticides. That means they also don’t need to be washed before being eaten, so the greens don’t get that “triple wash” like many we buy at the grocery store.
That, plus the fact they’re grown so much closer to the stores where they end up, means Plenty’s greens have a longer shelf life, staying fresh for as many as 21 days, Santy said.
Once we’re fully suited up, we head inside.
First stop is the seeding room. Seed trays run along a conveyor belt, where machines place a precise number of seeds into the soil, then squirt just enough water and nutrients on top.
Then we head into a brightly lit room full of colorful lights called the propagation room. I can’t take pictures — the specific combination of artificial light in here is proprietary because it’s the company’s secret sauce for helping the plants grow faster. They’re ready to harvest in around 30 days, instead of the 60 to 90 it would take outside in the field, Santy said.
After a couple weeks in this room, the baby plants are routed on a conveyor belt to a series of robots that pull them from the trays and place them into growing towers that are several stories high.
“Imagine how delicate the fingers of that robot have to be to lift it without ripping the plant or tearing the roots,” Santy said.
Then, the towers full of plants are transferred by a much larger robot arm to another conveyor system that moves them into the final growing room.
“When you're able to stand in front of a 30 foot wall of lettuce, that’s when it gets really cool,” said Yatae Lewis, the farm’s site operations manager. “I tell people I work at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.”
I tell people I work at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
The light in here is super powerful and also proprietary. This is where the plants stay for a couple weeks until they’re ready for harvest. Stories of lush purple and green spring mix and kale and spinach tower above me.
And it’s humid. All the water the plants in this room respirate, or essentially sweat out, is recycled. That helps the farm use about 90% less water than conventional growing, Santy said.
What the farm means for Compton
Farming is actually nothing new to Compton. In the early 1900s, Compton was an agricultural hub. Compton Creek, a major tributary to the L.A. River, made for a reliable water source and rich soil. Southern California sunshine made for ideal growing conditions.
Compton’s Mayor Emma Sharif said the Plenty indoor farm is a way to bring that legacy back in a new way.
“This isn't just a nod to our past. It's a bold step into the future of farming,” she told LAist.
This isn't just a nod to our past. It's a bold step into the future of farming.
And Sharif said a big reason she supported the company coming to Compton was that it brings needed jobs. Part of the city’s agreement with Plenty is that at least a third of the farm’s 70 employees have to be from Compton. As of now about 31% are, said Yatae Lewis, the farm’s site operations manager.
Lewis grew up in Long Beach and has lived in Compton for 20 years.
“Compton is known for so many things,” Lewis said. “Indoor farming is absolutely not one of them. So being a part of changing the narrative of Compton was something that I absolutely jumped at.”
He’s worked here for three years, and watched the farm go from empty warehouse to indoor growing powerhouse. He said that while the number of jobs may not be high, the quality is.
“We want jobs, and not only jobs, we want good jobs,” Lewis said. “And not only good jobs, we have jobs that we can brag about. If we can do that for 30% of the workforce, that's amazing.”
Lewis said the jobs for Compton locals range from field techs to growers to managers. The majority of roles in the farm have no educational requirements and they offer competitive pay as well as benefits, Santy said. Lewis said one of their Compton employees was able to afford her dream of traveling to South Korea for a K-pop concert recently.
“If we have an individual that now has a passport and can see the world and bring that back to Compton because they work at Plenty, that's what we're rooting for,” Lewis said.
Lewis, who also serves as Plenty’s community liaison, said the company has partnered with the Compton Run Club to co-host events and fundraisers, and they have partnerships with seven local middle schools to highlight STEM education.
“I have a 13-year-old, and he's into robots, he's into engineering, he's into computer coding,” Lewis said. “When I bring him to a bring-your-kid-to-work day and he sees the robots and he talks to the engineers, his mind is blown. It's very humbling and encouraging that my son's dream job can be five minutes away in the city that he lives in.”
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