In the fall of 2014, Iowa State alumnus Clayton Mooney moved back to Ames and enrolled in ECON 334 (Entrepreneurship in Agriculture) at Iowa State University. During the class, he met four other students and worked with them to develop the idea of KinoSol, Mooney's first agricultural technology business. Following this creation, Mooney's time was spent abroad in developing regions, where he helped implement KinoSol's solar food dehydrators.
As he traveled the world installing solar food dehydrators in Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Brazil, one question was always at the forefront of his mind: How do we create access to the food that people deserve?
One evening, Mooney posed this question on his blog. His business partner, Danen Pool, had a response for him—but with a catch. "He said that the answer was indoor farming, but he told me that most indoor farms get it wrong," Mooney said.
Mooney and Pool cofounded Nebullam Farm in 2017 as a way to help other indoor farms. By partnering with local grocers, farmers and chefs, Nebullam Farm was able to help them become more efficient and sustainable by making data-driven decisions. However, the restaurant shutdown caused by COVID-19 in 2020 forced them to reevaluate their business model.
"I kept coming back to the question that I originally posed on [my] blog that led to the genesis of [Clayton Farms]," Mooney said. "In my opinion, it's owning the supply chain. If you are owning the supply chain, you have to be a good steward of the land … If you don't understand each step of producing the food that goes on someone's plate, it's very easy to accidentally waste [resources] or to not realize that you are wasting [resources]."
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