Boomers set to grow vertical farming sites across Australia and Asia
LONDON: Boomers are behind a startup set to grow vertical farming sites around the world.
The WA startup which is building the nation’s first solar powered commercial farm in Mandurah — worth $6.5m — has unveiled plans to establish nine more vertical farm sites across Australia and Asia by 2026
A planned $10m of private investment is expected to help fund the expansion.
Eden Towers — founded by husband and wife team Christian Prokscha and Julia Prichodko — has partnered with Scottish-headquartered Intelligent Growth Solutions to build four 12-metre high tower structures at the WA Food Innovation Precinct at Peel Business Park in Nambeelup, near Mandurah.
Vertical farming involves growing crops in stacked layers, using 98 per cent less water and achieving up to 15 times the yield of a greenhouse or open field by creating a precision controlled indoor ecosystem where plant can thrive all year round without soil.
The system uses less land and pests and weeds can be kept at bay, eliminating the need for chemicals.
Eden Towers’ first commercial crop, including lettuce, spinach, kale and basil, will harvested in late 2022 and the Mandurah farm will produce 120t a year when fully operational.
Mr Prokscha and Ms Prichodko had been operating a small trial vertical farm at Malaga over the past year to prove up the technology, supplying leafy salads and micro hers through independent supermarkets and restaurants.
The Mandurah development, worth $6.5m including land and a laboratory, will be Australia’s first commercial farm to be fully solar powered, and Eden Towers aims for the facility to be carbon neutral by 2024, solidifying its commitment to sustainable food production..
Mr Prokscha, a former management consultant and private equity professional, said since a successful seed capital raising of $650,000 through crowdfunding platform Birchal in 2021, Eden Towers has since secured a debt facility and discussions were underway with several private investors for an A-Series raise of $10m to help fund plans to build industrial scale farms in every capital city of Australia and into the Asia Pacific.
The first expansion steps are underway with a small farm in Adelaide being commissioned for market trials in February.
