You've heard the term "farm-to-table," but how about farm-to-table in 48 hours? It's the ultimate greenhouse, and we had a chance to take our 360-degree camera inside.
When you think of life on a farm, 125 acres of tomatoes under glass probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind.
David Bell, chief marketing officer at Houweling’s Group, said, “It's amazingly cool. What does 22 acres of greenhouse look like? You can see it's literally open space with glass above. Growing in the greenhouse environment, we're trying to recreate the ultimate climate. On this site we have six phases totaling over 125 acres where they are growing all sorts of greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers.”
"Our use of water is much less compared to field. We use about one sixth the water. There's a lot of crop work that goes into keeping these plants in balance and producing quality tomatoes consistently. "
“We do a lot of grading within the greenhouse environment. We will harvest that ripe truss off the vine. We will put it in a box on a cart. It will than come from our greenhouse and automatically go on carts to our packing house.”
“We can harvest this morning, we can ship this evening, and within 48 hours it can be on the grocery shelf. Sustainability in agriculture is important, regardless of the technologies you are using. As the population of the world continues to grow, we're trying to find ways to feed all those hungry mouths. This is an example that can really work.”
