#futuristic farming

In an inner-ring suburb of St. Paul, it appears some inventive people are utilizing large indoor spaces for their farming! What's more, they're utilizing aquaponics, which is just plain awesome! Here's an excerpt from the article, but you should read the whole thing and tell me what you think!

Lettuce grows on walls and basil sprouts inside large rotating cylinders at Garden Fresh Farms in Maplewood, where sun and soil are forsaken for 21st-century technology.

The aquaponics farm is housed in a 20,000-square-foot warehouse. Automated lighting and watering systems nourish plants that are plugged into panels made of polystyrene, foam boards that look like doubles for attic insulation.

"There's no pesticide, there's no weeding to do," said co-owner Dave Roeser as he examined several walls of lettuce that can be pulled along a track like sliding glass doors.

About 800 basil plants and 1,000 heads of lettuce are harvested each day at Garden Fresh Farms, recently named Ramsey County's Family Farm of the Year.

"We're proving that urban farming can happen in a warehouse," Roeser said.