Sustainability Issues: Safety and Health, Water, Energy, Waste
There is a $20 billion market for salads and lettuce, and it has become increasingly common for salad greens to be contaminated or recalled. Meanwhile, the lettuce dilemma translates into safety and health, water, energy and waste issues. This is all compounded by the rising global population that is estimated to need fifty- to one-hundred percent increase in food production by 2050.
Technology: controlled environment agriculture (CEA) technology
• Revol Greens (Revol) is expanding to construct a the first 20 acres of a potentially 80-acre-large indoor greenhouse in Texas
• Revol’s goal with installing these climate-controlled, solar-powered greenhouses is to be in proximity to provide lettuce to a third of the U.S. Population within 24 hours. Beyond that, Revol plans to multiply the model building 5 indoor greenhouses in 5 years
• The Texas facility is the third of Revol’s plan; the others include Minnesota and California. Collectively, all facilities should enable Revol to generate over 33 million pounds of lettuce annually, which will help alleviate the recalled and contaminated greens
• More than that, Revol’s controlled-environment platform technology uses climate-controlled, solar power to combat climate change and food insecurity. Revol intends to enable its technology to be deployed anywhere in the world. Designed to remove waste and enhance growing, the agtech startup utilizes hydroponics, sterilized water, and LED-supplemented sunlight (when necessary) to produce non-GMO lettuce
• Revol’s Greenhouses require 90% less water than standard agricultural fields in addition to lowering transportation costs by being able to yield more lettuce per acre than traditional fields
Stakeholders:
-Salad and Lettuce consumers
-Restaurants, grocers, distributors, retailers
-Agricultural regulators
-USDA, FDA, EPA, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
-Agricultural service providers
Implementation:
- Proceed in constructing the 3rd facility, a 20-acre greenhouse in Dallas-Fort Worth region
- Collect data on Revol’s two other greenhouse (Minnesota and California) lettuce distribution and market reach. Identify pain points and successes
- Map out target market and distribution in order to fulfill Revol’s goal: to provide non-GMO indoor lettuce to one-third of the U.S. population in 24 hours
makeasmartcity 
I’m really intrigued by controlled environment agriculture (CEA) for all of the reasons you mentioned in the post and in the article, especially the return to regionally sourced food systems and the whopping 90% water reduction. I’m hopeful that Revol Greens can lead the pack with this new raise and grand goals of reaching 5 sites in 5 years. They make a good point that if a Minnesota company can grow lettuce in harsh conditions then this technology can be used anywhere that energy can be drawn. The only setback is energy supply, which coincidentally is not mentioned about their Minnesota farm, because likely the energy costs of these high-tech mega-greenhouses is extraordinary and unless most (if not all) of the energy is coming from renewable sources, I don’t see how this any more sustainable than traditional farming methods.
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