With a cornucopia of new ag startups, from rooftop greenhouses to high-tech vertical farms, the city’s growing agriculture movement is looking to deliver fresh produce even in the coldest Chicago winter.
When you walk into Farmed Here’s 90,000-square-foot warehouse in Bedford Park, a sleepy industrial outpost about 15 miles southwest of Chicago, you might not immediately register that you’re standing in the second coming of the locavore movement. But then you get inside and smell basil—along with baby greens, broccoli, and kale—all of it bathed in the purple fluorescence of LED light and stacked seven racks high in a massive hydroponic system that pumps soybean- and kelp-infused water through a temperature- and humidity-controlled system, nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
