Helping Vertical Farming Feed The World’s People
Welcome back to Build Your Dream.
A primary goal here at American Lending Center is to help solve issues facing our world. Arguably one of the biggest problems we face entering the future is how to feed the populace.
As the world population grows, the amount of available agricultural land is shrinking. That’s because humans continue to develop, and because of our changing climate.
A cutting-edge approach to growing food may hold a solution. It’s called vertical farming, and ALC is participating in some exciting developments in the field (pun intended).
Indoor vertical farming offers a number of advantages – the method can grow crops year-round, it can cut water use by as much as 99%, yields per acre are multiplied by up to 100 times depending on the crop and growth method, and more.
New Technology
Vertical farming is generations ahead of greenhouse farming. While greenhouses allow year-round growth, the growing period is limited to daylight hours. They still use large amounts of land and even with controlled drip irrigation use significant amounts of water.
In the vertical farming industry, grow lights can be on 24/7, using LED controlled by computer to fine-tune the illumination and energy use. The three primary grow methods – hydroponics, aeroponics, aquaponics – can be micro-managed for nutrients to maximize yield and quality. (Thanks to Sierra Dong for her research.)
As is the case with most high-tech, the vertical farming industry is making progress in leaps and bounds.
Our Involvement
These vertical farm projects fit our profile for forward-looking, sustainable investment. We have already helped launch Americus Fresh, a 338,000-square-foot facility now under construction in Georgia near the Jimmy Carter Regional Airport. Once completed in the third quarter of 2024, it will employ 84 people growing and shipping organic produce throughout the southeast.
This project checks all the boxes – it is in a rural area, it will create good jobs, it meets the criteria for EB-5 financing. We’re happy to be part of the Americus Fresh development.
I’m particularly happy to help advance an industry I believe is poised to help solve a serious problem our society faces. We are already looking at other vertical farming projects for potential financing. It is important to us all.
We are helping to Build the Dream of feeding the world.
Thanks for reading.
John Shen
CEO & co-founder
American Lending Center
About American Lending Center: A Financial Times (FT) Americas’ Fastest Growing Company
American Lending Center (ALC) is a private nonbank lending institution and nationally recognized leader in small business lending. By the end of 2022, ALC has fully financed senior loan products to 83 qualified EB-5 projects in 19 states, contributing to a combined construction and business expansion budget of over 1.2 billion dollars. ALC’s lending practice has successfully created more than 13,000 new jobs nationwide since 2009.
In 2022, ALC launched its new rural construction and development fund with capital available for construction of fixed assets of all types in rural areas including manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, hospitality, specialty use, multi-use and other project types.
Follow American Lending Center on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Copyright (C) 2023 American Lending Center. All rights reserved.