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Hello there, I'm Chris Bajuk, along with my business partner, Chris Sheppard
we're the co-founders of UrbanHarvest.
UrbanHarvest is a hyper-local farming company. Hyper-local meaning we're going to grow food
in the urban environment within 10 miles of the end consumer.
In the process we're going to eliminate the traditional agricultural supply chain.
In the U.S., agriculture is the largest user of land and water,
the largest source of water pollution
and one of the largest sources of carbon emissions,
and the average item produced travels 1,500 miles from farm to market.
By eliminating that supply chain
we save on all the carbon emissions
and lower costs, and increase freshness of produce.
Seed to end product, to you, the market.
We're going to build rooftop greenhouses on space that we lease from urban building owners.
So in effect, we are creating new farmland out of building rooftops.
So we don't have to create new farmland out in the wild lands.
We're using space that is already touched by civilization, and using it in a more productive manner.
In the process we're going to reduce the net environmental impact of agriculture,
and the end consumer is going to receive fresher, healthier and tastier produce.
Well, first of all we need large, flat rooftops because we're going to be building greenhouse structures on them.
And we've already had several rounds negotiations with Microsoft and Charlie's Produce.
Microsoft is obviously a Fortune 500 software company
and we're going to build a greenhouse on their Redmond campus facility.
We're going to grow food and sell directly to Microsoft food services.
In effect, the transportation distance to market is zero.
So what you're looking at here is a small-scale, nutrient film technique hydroponic growing system.
These are living butterhead lettuce.
And hydroponic systems are actually pretty simple.
They're basically like rainwater gutters.
So you have a thin film of water laden with nutrients that flows down each gutter channel.
It flows into the reservoir, and then just like an aquarium pump, pumps it back through the process.
It maximizes the production rate of the crops because the plant roots at all
times have all the water, nutrients and oxygen available to them
so they don't have to dedicate much energy to growing expansive root systems.
Instead they devote all their energy to vegetative i.e. leafy green or fruiting production.
There's no soil involved, so they're very clean.
Harvest is simply pulling them out.
Can't find cleaner, healthier produce than that.