A pilot project to grow berries on rooftop controlled environment greenhouse of residence/commercial building as a cooperative.
This is a startup project to prove the viability of growing berries using greenhouse technology owned and operated by families and small groups organizationally structured as a cooperative.
The health, environmental, and economic benefits of local food development are justification for an effort to scale up the effort to transform the food system so that it has meaningful local content. In line with this thought is the initiative to incubate a multistakeholder cooperative to promote and support family/small scale, automated, soil-based, controlled environment greenhouse farming of berries in Arizona. The cooperative
https://azubc.coop/ with its membership of growers, workers, and sellers, structured as
a supply chain collaborative will improve efficiency and operations that will enhance the capabilities and capacities of the produce supply chain players to better meet the needs of consumers.
A goal of the cooperative is to provide 30% of the berries consumed in Arizona by 2040. This goal is non-threatening to the existing supply arrangements since it is consistent with the natural population growth projected for Arizona. The 2020 population for Arizona of 7,346,800 is by 2040 projected to grow to 9,796,800. That is a projected increase of 2,432,000 people.
The multistakeholder cooperative business model enables many small producers to achieve economies of scale and efficiency that is not feasible or practical on an individual basis and brings to the table the management and technical expertise to ensure that the needs and requirements of the sellers are clearly translated into inputs and services to support the growers. This minimizes waste, reduces cost, and better harmonizes the different links in the produce supply chain for berries in Arizona.
The use of controlled environment greenhouse technology enables more output than on a comparable land size of field farming and with its intensive farming capability allows for commercial-scale production by families and small groups.
Three types of growers envisioned by the cooperative are:
1) Families who do not have access to farmland in peri-urban/suburb towns. These areas are less threatened by development encroachment and the cost of land is considerably lower. In these areas, custom-built, multigenerational residential homes with solar-powered, soil-based, controlled environment rooftop greenhouses will be built on individual lots within the town and where space is available will be built into an estate. A central facility (hub) will be built in the vicinity to support the packaging, washing, etc. so that there is maximum use of the residential rooftop for greenhouse production. The minimum size of a residential greenhouse is 2,600 sq ft.
2) Small to medium-scale farmers in rural communities that have land on which to put a ground-level greenhouse. The minimum size of such a ground-level greenhouse is 1,600 sq ft.
3) In urban locations characterized by the high cost of land and rapid housing development the rooftop of commercial buildings will be used for greenhouse farming by small groups. The minimum size of such a greenhouse facility will be 10,000 sq ft.
While the academic literature conveys a positive outlook for using the greenhouse for the intensive growing of certain crops and the growing automation offered for the greenhouse implies less manual work and technical capabilities on the part of growers in the greenhouse, the conditions in Arizona mandate empirical support for the operations of this technology before implementing a massive scale-up of the use of the technology by families and small groups in the local environment.
The pilot project is being planned to take place in Arizona City, in Pinal County, AZ. The project is a triplex, residential building (each unit -3 bed/2 bath) with a solar-powered, soil-based, rooftop, controlled environment greenhouse to grow strawberries. Upon the successful completion and operation of the demonstration project, ten (10) new residential buildings and one (1) commercial building will be undertaken. The trial phase will be completed by an additional thirty (30) residential units and three (3) commercial buildings. The trial phase is expected to take five years.
The funding for the demonstration project will come from loans that could include private money lenders to enable a more immediate action while the remaining trial phase will depend on members' contributions, grants, and loans. The post-trial period development will use capital raising strategies with exempt securities from the community.
ASSUMPTIONS OF THE BUSINESS MODEL
The controlled environment greenhouse when automated eliminates many of the risks associated with traditional farming as well as chores that require certain physical and intellectual capabilities on the part of a human being. This creates the opportunity for those without the specialized knowledge of the dynamics behind the different functioning within the automated controlled environment greenhouse to operate it. This situation can be compared to how a sophisticated technology such as an automobile only requires acquiring driving skills and following the traffic rules to be able to travel distances at speeds that are way beyond the physical capability of a human being. The average driver knows nothing about the internal functioning of the car and when the car breaks down there is support by mechanics to diagnose and carry out the needed repairs. There is also an arrangement in place to ensure the fuel and needed parts are available so that the downtime due to any issue is minimized so that the car can function as needed.
The supposition is that a family/group with the required training of how to monitor the functioning of an automated controlled environment greenhouse and understands the horticultural basics of a particular crop, requires additional support only during the planting and harvesting of a crop. What is needed is an organizational structure that includes technical, technological, and horticultural expertise to respond within a reasonable timeframe to ensure the continuous functioning of the greenhouse. This is the function that will be provided for the cooperative by the worker membership. To maximize the advantages associated with size and shared services offered by the cooperative, there will be extensive learning of business and cooperative practices.
The implication of the automated controlled environment greenhouse is that thousands of families and small groups can participate in local food development thus enhancing the equitable structure of the community. The challenge is in ensuring that greenhouse farming by families and small groups is a profitable business activity given the upfront costs.
The effective transformation to a meaningful scale of local food development requires community support and this will be facilitated with relevant and appropriate mobilization and education activities to inform members of the community of the benefits and of the opportunities to invest needed capital to make the community the engine of growth for local food development system in Arizona.
The pilot project will demonstrate the viability of the technology to grow local food and will facilitate membership drives of all categories of members.