Green Mountain Harvest Hydroponic Farm

Hydroponic Farmers Turn Half Acre Into Million-Dollar Enterprise

Green Mountain Harvest Hydroponic Farm | Dan Sullivan |

Three cash crops fetching gross sales of $1.4 million to $1.6 million annually on a 1/2-acre footprint?

Those are the numbers Green Mountain Harvest, a hydroponic farm growing basil, watercress and summer crisp lettuce in Waitsfield, Vermont, is reporting.

Whole Foods locations along the upper East Coast are a major customer, but the farm also serves grocery stores, food co-ops, restaurants and delis closer to home.

“We started building in 2012. We went into production in 2013,” said John Farr, who started the business with his younger brother Ted.

Now 68 and 67, respectively, the brothers previously launched a tree service with their dad in 1975.

“We grew up on a dairy farm before that,” Farr said. “My dad was a dairy farmer. He also had a small farmstand and raised vegetables.”

The Farr brother initially thought the hydroponic endeavor would serve as a good winter business, but they were soon at it full time.

“So, my sons took over the tree service, and my brother and I run this business,” Farr said.

Farr, his brother and a former partner came up with the idea to grow hydroponically in order to fulfill a need for local wintertime produce. The partner, an organic vegetable farmer, sold his share of the business to the brothers four years ago, and they lease the land from him.

“It’s been a learning experience, that’s for sure,” Farr said. “It’s amazing how far hydroponic technology has come in the last 12 years, from we started to where it is now.”

The partners bought their hydroponic system from a company called CropKing in Ohio.

The closed system allows for nutrient recycling with computer monitoring to keep nutrients and pH at constant levels. Once a week, the nutrient tank gets flushed out into a nearby hayfield.

“They were super great to work with,” Farr said of CropKing. “They’ve been in the business a long, long time, and if you called them up, they would answer any questions for you, and they didn’t bill you for it or anything. It was all included.”

That holds true even 12 years later, he said.

“Some of the other ones aren’t like that,” Farr said. “They give you X amount of hours when you buy a system. You burn through that then they start billing you for any consultation.”

That system is fired up year-round.

“It was 1 below zero here last night and 72 degrees in our greenhouse, and stuff’s growing like crazy,” Farr said in mid January.

Those temperatures don’t come without a cost, namely a high electric bill, but Green Mountain Harvest installed a Torbel biomass boiler manufactured in Portugal to recycle wood waste from the family tree business to reduce waste and sustainably source electricity. It can burn wood pellets or wood chips.

“It’s a super-efficient, high-end unit” Farr said. “It’s 1.4 million BTUs.”

With the current cost of propane under $2 a gallon, the biomass boiler is taking a break.

“It would cost us more to run that than it would to burn propane,” Farr said.

Another 50% of the farm’s electricity needs are met with a solar array.

As for how much volume accounts for $1.5 million in annual sales, Farr tried to articulate it.

“It’s really hard to put a finger on that,” Farr said. “We basically have a half-acre greenhouse at 22,000 square feet, and we harvest 25% of it every week. So, it’s constantly rolling over — harvest, plant, harvest, plant.”

The farm handles all of its own deliveries, shipping, via its own truck, 250 to 300 cases of watercress a week to Whole Foods and around another 20 to 30 cases locally.

“We’re doing about 125 cases of a Thai basil a week, and then the sweet basil we’re doing probably 100 to 150 cases a week to Whole Foods,” Farr said.

Sweet basil is delivered in three-quarter-ounce and 4-ounce packets, Thai basil in 1-ounce crispers and watercress in 3-ounce crispers.

Whole Foods buys some Green Mountain Harvest head lettuce, but the majority goes to local schools, restaurants, delis, small grocers and food co-ops.

Summer crisp options include 10-pound bulk cases and 24-count crisper cases of “sandwich ready” lettuce with the ends removed and leaves stacked on top of each other for convenience.

“We’ve never really nailed it down to weight-wise how much it is,” Farr said.

Gross annual sales numbers are impressive, but the cost of doing business has skyrocketed while the product price has remained relatively constant, he said.

“From when we started out in business to where we are now, things have gone up a lot,” Farr said. “Materials, packaging, labor has gone up a lot. When we first started out, an average laborer was $13 an hour. Now we’re paying them $17 to $20.”

That all presents challenges, he said.

While there is room at the current farm site to grow by around 20%, the brothers are looking toward turning over Green Mountain Harvest to a new generation.

“If we want to expand any more than that, we’d have to find another site,” Farr said. “My brother and I are both getting up in age, so we’re thinking about selling this business, get some young blood back in here who wants to grow it more.”

Original Article: https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/produce/hydroponic-farmers-turn-half-acre-into-million-dollar-enterprise/article_1f628b65-270a-46dc-ad26-ac7fb1607de9.html