CleverRoot

3 0 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t MEET YOUR MAKERS Brittney Miller Mother Hen of Manchester Farms in Columbia, South Carolina BRITTNEY MILLER'S FATHER, Bill Odom, was the originator of the family's interest in the poultry business, having graduated from Clemson with a degree in poultry science and working at The Campbell Soup Company raising chickens as a flock supervisor. As commercial livestock grew more popular, Odom resisted the idea of pushing animals to grow as a big as possible, as quickly as possible. "He used to say that a happy bird will be a better bird," Miller remembers. Odom started breeding quails in his backyard in South Carolina during the early '70s to train his hunting dogs, but soon turned to selling quail, as there was no commercial source for them at the time. Odom started with a few local grocery stores, then began to sell to chefs at restaurants. During its first year, Odom processed 25,000 quail; today, Manchester Farms will process four million Pha- raoh quail a year, as well as eggs, and at any given time there are 300,000–400,000 quail at the farm, with 100,000 babies being hatched every Thursday in incubators. The quail are raised in seven barns and are fed a probiotic diet with vitamins and minerals. Famous chefs across the county, including Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Emeril Lagasse, buy from Manchester Farms, and the quail farm has been partnered with fine foods purveyor D'Artagnan for over 35 years. "Our quail have always been antibiotic- and hormone-free, long before it was popular," Miller adds. "And it's going to stay that way!" Danielle Horton Director of Marketing for Urban Produce in Irvine, California IF THE IDEA OF A FARM con- jures up row upon row of green vegetables or tall trees, then be prepared to be surprised by Urban Produce's facilities. After buying patents for a vertical farm from a plant physiologist in 2013, Ed Horton, who had always worked in technology but grew up on a farm in Texas, tweaked the layouts and built a vertical farm in Irvine, California. While the building covers only an eighth of an acre, it has the ability to produce an astonishing 16 acres worth of wheatgrass and microgreens for grocery stores and juice bars across the country, as well as local Orange County restaurants. "Think of the inside like a dry-cleaner's," Horton's daughter Danielle, Director of Marketing, explains. "There are rows of hanging carriers—around 360—full of racks of plants that move around in a serpentine motion." Each carrier moves slowly for most of the day, allowing it to get even sunlight, only stopping to be watered, seeded or harvested. Because Urban Produce can con- trol every facet of the growing process, from the nutrients the plants are fed to the amount of sunlight they receive, the life of the plants from seed to harvest can take as little as ten days (wheatgrass can take two to three weeks if grown outdoors). And while the vertical farm may look like a factory, everything grown is certified organic. "We create a sort of tea that we feed to the plants," Danielle says. "The nutrients would be too gritty and large for our water system, so we brew the ones to create a soluble solution we can irrigate the plants with. The computer is also programmed to give them exactly the amount of water they need, resulting in zero water waste." And while many people question whether vertical farms will eventually take over traditional farming, Danielle says not to worry. "We're not trying to take over other farms. As the earth's population begins to swell, we just want to supplement what other farmers are doing. We can't grow everything!" Introducing the people across the country behind the food we love to eat by Jesse Hom-Dawson ■cr

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