On Milwaukee's north side, a small but highly productive indoor farm is taking root. The so-called Hundred Acre farm is on a parcel of what was a major industrial hub for decades. Some people believe the farm could become an element of a resilient localized food system.
Its founder and CEO, Chris Corkery, arrived in Milwaukee five years ago. He says he was — and remains — on a mission to reinvent the food system through urban production and indoor production.
Corkery understands people might have been skeptical. "Some random guy from New York that moved here that has an idea. No one's getting on that ship," he says.
But Corkery did his homework. He kept talking with people and he started building out a 5,000-square-foot space in Milwaukee's 30th Street Corridor. "We're looking into our vegetation room," Corkery says. Today, four full-time "farmers" raise and harvest Italian large-leaf basil. Their other crop is a salad blend."So, we're stacked five high, five horizontal levels of growing, going up, I believe, 10 feet," Corkery says.
Read more on WUWM.