Urban farmers slow to grow funding

For Vertical Innovations LLC, the only way to go is up. Problem is the organizers haven’t grown the necessary funding for their vertical farming plans.

A year after signing a lease with Missouri State University for the former MFA Inc. silos downtown at Boonville Avenue and Phelps Street, efforts to grow produce in layers up the concrete cylinders are still at ground level.

But there are results: Vertical Innovations co-founders Jim Kerns and David Geisler say they’re growing about 100 pounds of spring mix lettuce a month in the basement area of the silos.

While cleanup is taking place in the upper portions, the business partners are growing in an eight-foot diameter scalable model raft under artificial light. The full-size rafts are designed to be 22 feet in diameter and stacked in layers to the top of the silos – hence the term vertical farming.

The self-funded construction work – to the tune of $500,000 so far – has been on pause since November.

“Our struggle has been finding the right partner to help us finish this venture and complete what we started at the old MFA facility,” Geisler said.

The last several months, Geisler and Kerns have balanced their dream with some work on the side.

Kerns works on apartment development with the Vecino Group, and Geisler performs consulting work.

Now, Vertical Innovations’ estimated costs to fully grow produce in three silos are $5.5 million, and the partners are in search mode for greater investor capital. If all 13 of the silos were in use, investment would rise to over $12 million, require about 30 employees and produce between 15,000 and 17,000 pounds of lettuce a day.

Kerns and Geisler had planned to create 10 rafts of vegetables and five rafts of mushrooms in one silo, but after researching, they found it wouldn’t generate enough revenue to support the project in the long run.

The pivot to growing just lettuce in three silos increased their startup costs.

The partners wanted to obtain funding locally, but prospective investors haven’t panned out in Springfield; Kerns said the idea seems to be out of their comfort zones. They’re now looking to national and international partners, such as AeroFarms, The Association for Vertical Farming and microbiologist Dickson Despommier – known as the father of vertical farming. Deals haven’t been struck, but Kerns said conversations are ongoing.

To spread the word, Geisler said he and Kerns are scheduled guests on local late-night talk show “The Mystery Hour” in the next couple weeks and for presentations at 1 Million Cups in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Kansas City in the next couple of months.

With financing to apply the model on the large scale to the three silos, Vertical Innovations would aim to produce 3,000-5,000 pounds of lettuce a day. Geisler said they are working to secure distribution channels with local institutions and nationwide distribution firms. Each silo will have 70 rafts for growing.

“There’s data out there that between head lettuce and romaine lettuce and a leafy green, the average American consumes about 25 pounds of lettuce per person per year, so you’re looking at a lettuce consumption in this country of over 7 billion pounds,” Geisler said. “We think that there is demand for our product. We just need to have a little bit of success here, and then we’ll be able to target additional facilities, not only in this area, but in areas around the country.”

With thousands of empty silos across the United States, Kerns’ idea could be transformational in agriculture. No longer will farmers need acres and acres of fields to grow produce, but they can grow from a contained space within an urban landscape.

“This changes agriculture,” Kerns said. “This is a very real, very applicable and very fast realization of a new form of agriculture to the volume of which the market needs and communities are requesting.”

As associate vice president for economic development at MSU, Allen Kunkel manages the roughly $40,000 annual lease of the silos. Vertical Innovations is signed on for five years.

Kunkel said MSU is helping to tell the story of Vertical Innovations through his personal contacts and community organizations. He said the potential is there for MSU’s agriculture school to partner with Vertical Innovations to give students internships and applied learning experiences.

The partners say the controlled environments of the silos reduce the uncertainty of weather and soil, and they also protect the crops from natural disasters and human inflictions, like nuclear bombs. The silos can be made seal-proof.

“These are the structures that everyone’s been looking for to solve this urban food production problem,” Kerns said. “The answer’s been right in front of us all along.”


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