A farm the size of a parking space,run by a veteran,in the middle of the city.
We’re building a turnkey path for veterans, military spouses, and transitioning service members to own and operate an indoor vertical farm where they already live. Before we build it, we want to know if you’d want one.
No cost, no commitment. Your answers shape what we build first.
So what is a vertical farm?
A farm that grows up instead of out. Plants grow indoors on stacked shelves, with their roots in water instead of soil and LED lights instead of the sun. Picture a clean, climate-controlled room lined with shelves of fresh lettuce and herbs.
- 1
Light
LED panels above every shelf stand in for the sun. They run on a timer every day of the year, so it never matters whether it’s cloudy, dark, or January outside.
- 2
Water
Roots sit in a shallow stream of water mixed with plant nutrients. This is called hydroponics. A pump sends the water back around to be reused instead of letting it soak into the ground.
- 3
Climate
Fans, heating, and cooling hold the room steady. No drought, frost, hail, or field pests, and the same harvest every week.
Where one can go
Is it real farming?
Yes. You seed, grow, harvest, and sell. Most greens go from seed to sale in a few weeks, so there’s a harvest every week instead of once a season.
What can it grow?
Leafy greens, herbs, and microgreens are the core. Strawberries, peppers, and mushrooms are possible. Big field crops like corn, wheat, or potatoes are not.
Is the food as good?
It’s the same plants, picked close to where they’re eaten, often the day they’re sold. Pests have a hard time getting indoors, so little or no pesticide is needed.
Do I need to know farming?
No. The daily work is checklists, measurements, cleaning, and logs. If you’ve followed a maintenance schedule or a pre-flight checklist, you’ll recognize it. Training covers the growing.
What’s the catch?
Electricity. Indoor farms trade sunlight for LED power, and energy is the biggest running cost. That’s why every farm starts with a budget built around local utility rates, uses efficient LEDs that often qualify for utility rebates, and focuses on high-value crops.
Why greens and herbs first?
They grow fast, sell at a premium when fresh, and travel badly. Today about 9 in 10 acres of US lettuce are in just two states, California and Arizona, so for most cities, lettuce arrives after days on a truck.USDA, 2022 Census of Agriculture
Haven’t big vertical farms gone bust?
Some have. Since 2023, several venture-funded companies that spent hundreds of millions on giant facilities went bankrupt, mostly on energy and building costs. Our model is the opposite: small farms in existing buildings, customers lined up before the first harvest, and a budget that has to work at local power prices.
Can it be organic?
Yes. Hydroponic farms can be USDA Certified Organic if they use only approved inputs and meet the other program rules. A federal appeals court upheld that policy in 2022.USDA National Organic Program; Ninth Circuit, 2022
Cities need more farms. Veterans need a next mission.
The people best suited to run a disciplined, process-driven operation already live in the cities that are short on fresh food. We think those two facts belong together.
38%
of the fresh vegetables Americans eat are imported, up from 20% in 2007
USDA Economic Research Service
2 in 3
farmers who served in the military are 65 or older, and their numbers fell 18% in five years
USDA, 2022 Census of Agriculture
3 in 4
veterans live outside rural areas, in the cities and suburbs where the customers are
VA Office of Rural Health
Hunger reaches the military community too. About 1 in 4 active-duty service members reported food insecurity in the past year, and 11% of working-age veterans live in food-insecure households.DoD 2020 Status of Forces Survey; USDA Economic Research Service, 2015–19
What one farm looks like
Here’s what a single container-sized farm can produce. No weather, no season, and no soil to manage.
- 10×more lettuce per square foot than a field farm, even before stacking shelves
- 650 headsof lettuce, or 90 lbs of herbs, per week from one 40-foot container
- 92% lesswater per pound of lettuce than field growing, because it’s recirculated
- 52 weeksof harvest, so the jobs and the income are year-round
- 0 milesbetween the farm and the restaurants and grocers who buy from it
Yield and water comparisons: Arizona State University study of lettuce in Yuma, AZ (Barbosa et al., 2015). Container output is a manufacturer estimate; actual results vary by crop and setup.
How it works
Think of it as a franchise for a farm. You bring the discipline and the drive; we bring a repeatable playbook for every step between “I’m interested” and “my first delivery.”
Learn
Hands-on training at a working demonstration farm, plus the business side: finance, operations, hiring, and compliance, including the food-safety course the FDA requires of most produce farms.
Finance
We help you apply for the financing yourself: USDA farm loans and grants (some give veterans priority), SBA veteran programs, state and local incentives, and utility rebates for efficient lighting.
Site
Commercial real estate partners help find underused buildings; we scan them in 3D before you ever visit.
Build
A standard farm configuration sized to your space and crop, with equipment, setup, and food-safety registration handled.
Grow
Seeds, nutrients, and remote monitoring supplied, with a central help desk for technical and safety incidents. We also help you set up USDA crop insurance for your farm.
Sell
We run sales and delivery to caterers, restaurants, and grocers under one brand, so demand is there before your first harvest and you can focus on growing.
The loans and grants are in your name. They pay for the site and everything needed to set up the farm, which we provide and coordinate: the building, the equipment, the build-out, and the launch. After that, we supply the seeds and nutrients and handle sales and delivery. The farm and the business are yours.
Who this is for
Military families: not just the service member, but the household that served alongside them.
Veterans
Especially those living in or near a city who want to own something, not just work somewhere.
Military spouses
A business that doesn’t depend on a single zip code, and that can be set up again after a move.
Transitioning service members
A defined mission, a clear operating procedure, and a team behind you from day one.
Who’s behind this
Sustainable Local Farming is led by Rahul Mathur, who spent more than ten years at Compass Group, the world’s largest food-service company, working in more than 20 countries.
Compass runs kitchens and supply chains everywhere from military bases to offshore platforms and major sporting events. That work covers the whole path food takes from grower to plate: sourcing, logistics, food safety, and franchising a food business so it runs the same way in every city. It’s also where you learn what caterers and chefs will pay for produce picked that morning.
Rahul has also worked with Kadenze, an online education company partnered with leading universities, which shapes how we’re designing the training: hands-on at a working farm, backed by material you can learn from at your own pace.
“We build people, and the people build the business.”
Our operating principle
The support network we’re building with
We’ve held early conversations with the USDA, SBA, and VA, the federal offices whose job is to connect veterans with agriculture and small-business resources. Their programs are the backbone of the training and financing we want to offer.
USDA Military Veterans Agricultural Liaison
The Department of Agriculture’s office for veterans entering farming, alongside its Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production.
SBA Office of Veterans Business Development
Veteran Business Outreach Centers that deliver entrepreneurship training and connect veteran-owned businesses to capital. We’re in discussion with the New York center about webinars.
VA Veterans Experience Office
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ partnerships team, our first point of contact in the federal network, who connected us with the SBA and USDA.
Military OneSource and Joining Forces
Next on our list: programs for military spouse education and careers, which we plan to approach for recruitment and training.
These are discussions, not endorsements. No federal agency has approved or funded this project.
Where we are today
We’re at the start, and we’d rather say so. Nothing is built yet; this is the stage where your answers have the most influence.
Listen and plan
This survey, conversations with the USDA, SBA, and VA, and the farm budgets and financing packages the program will run on.
Training farm and pilots
Open a training farm and help the first military-family farmers launch pilot farms with the full playbook behind them.
City by city
Repeat what works in the metro areas where interest is strongest, which is exactly what the survey tells us.
Would you run one?
This survey is the whole point of the site right now. We’re deciding where to put the first training farm, how to package financing, what to grow, and what to teach first. Your answers decide that.
Email is optional, nothing is sold or shared, and honest “not interested” answers help just as much.
16 questions in 6 short steps
- 1About you
- 2Your interest
- 3Your background
- 4Getting started
- 5Food & community
- 6Wrapping up