After more than 10 years of working in the aquaponics sector to create better connection between food and the environment, Upward Farms closes its Brooklyn headquarters and announced its departure from the vertical farming sector, while maintaining the positivism in what has been achieved.
Upward Farms announced yesterday that they were closing their Brooklyn headquarters and will no longer operate in the vertical farming sector. "We want to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who has been a part of this journey, including our colleagues, investors, customers, partners, families, and friends," they said in the press release.
Thus ends the project that began with Jason Green, Ben Silverman, and Matt La Rosa who wanted to improve the link between the environment and food through sustainability. Upward Farms explained that the complexity of aquaponics is staggering and that challenges would always be the order of the day. They also clarified that they believe that resolving the tension between food and climate is one of the most important challenges of the 21st century.
For this reason, the company continued to encourage the exploration of regenerative agriculture and soil management, specifically the microbiome. In its view, understanding it is understanding the regulatory system of the natural world. Therefore, in their own words, "improving the soil microbiome […] may be the key to unlocking new levels of fertility and growth in plants and addressing a myriad of other global challenges."
Finally, they added in the press release that a small part of their team will continue working on the microbiome. As well as that in the coming months, they will have more to share.
