October 21, 2019

HYVE to Exhibit at MISSION TOMORROW – On Display will be Indoor Farming for the Future

HYVE Indoor Vertical Farming Systems is pleased to be an exhibitor at MISSION TOMORROW on October 23rd and 24th at the Richmond Raceway in Richmond, Virginia. MISSION TOMORROW brings together nearly 150 businesses and organizations from across Central Virginia and the Greater Richmond, Virginia Area to introduce an estimated 12,000 8th grade students to the opportunities for education and employment in the future.

Sponsored by many fine companies including Dominion Energy, Altria, Kings Dominion, Facebook, CARMax, and gsk Pharmaceuticals, among others. According to its site MISSION TOMORROW says “This fun event is designed to introduce the next generation of the local workforce to a variety of career opportunities available in the region through interactive engagement with the exhibitors.”

Indoor farming is in its infancy, but holds great promise for the future. HYVE is positioned to be a leader in the industry and its systems promise to not only alter the way the world grows fresh crops and feeds people using smaller geographic footprints, but also serves as systems that create jobs.

According to Alia Clements, Program Manager for HYVE: “Vertical farming is a positive influencer and disrupter when it comes to providing fresh, healthy food and other crops for a growing population. Our systems are an example and precursor for an industry trend that will supplement traditional farming in meeting the world’s food needs. We are very interested in participating and educating people at MISSION TOMORROW because many students or even the general public have no idea just how dynamic and positive vertical farming can be for future generations.”

She adds: “We have targeted education as a market for our smaller indoor farming hydroponic systems known as LF-ONE or “Little Farm” because it teaches many of the STEM elements needed in classrooms with a very positive hands-on approach. We’ll be showing an actual LF-ONE unit at MISSION TOMORROW along with video on our large-scale complete hydroponic systems for commercial growers.”

Ken Bryant, Director of Marketing for HYVE says “Vertical farming holds tremendous promise for commercial farming both today and especially in the future. Twenty years from now it is likely to be very common to see crops grown indoors year-round in spaces that take much less real estate, deliver excellent return-on-investment for the growers, and provide consumers with a healthy choice for fresh food. Add-in that our systems eliminate the need for harmful pesticides and herbicides and create an environment where crops can be grown year-round with great predictability and you can see why this is a very exciting industry. We believe HYVE is positioned to be a leader in this field because we differentiate ourselves from others with our complete system that provides all the elements needed for indoor vertical farming. Students now in the 8th grade can be leaders in this industry and at the forefront of doing something very special that will influence generations to come as we build a better world together. MISSION TOMORROW is one platform to help educate those students on how they can be change agents.”

HYVE systems are 100% hydroponic, use LED grow lighting, and thus use less natural resources and reduce carbon footprint. By growing indoors many of the elements of nature that plague traditional crop harvest can be mitigated. With vertical indoor farming, factors such as floods, droughts, and things of that nature are not factors in the food supply chain.

HYVE head grower Paul Edmondson is very excited about the future of indoor farming and all that the method offers. He says “For many years I have grown crops and have been subject to many uncontrollable forces of nature. Predictability, quality of crops, cost evaluation – all these have been things that are out of control many times for traditional farmers and their conventional methods. Indoor contained environment agriculture will not supplant traditional methods but will give farmers a great advantage moving forward to help them achieve a real measure of controlled, predictable growth. I have personally grown more than 60 varieties of plants in our labs using our systems and am confident that HYVE indoor farming systems will be something exciting for the industry and world of growing.”

MISSION TOMORROW counts among its collaborators the Richmond Chamber of Commerce and more information on the event can be found at https://www.chamberrva.com/programs/mission-tomorrow/.