Author: Alex Francis

It may be hard to face the facts, but the world is experiencing an imminent agricultural crisis. With the onset of COVID-19 and the rationing of fresh eggs, milk and produce at your local markets, it has become increasingly apparent that we must make major shifts in how we grow our food if we want to be able to sufficiently feed the planet. The world will need 70% more food to feed our growing population by 2050, yet there will not be enough arable land and water to sustain traditional agriculture to meet these needs. 30% of arable land in the U.S. has been lost in the last 40 years. In addition, 60% of all available crop land today has been severely depleted from irrigation use.  More alarming, 25% of all people across the globe lack adequate nutrition, with nearly nine million deaths per year from hunger. 

Exacerbating the challenges of limited water and land resources is the growing amount of food waste. 130 billion tons of food (over $160 billion) is wasted annually, which represents one-third of our global food production. Nearly half of that food waste is fresh fruits and vegetables. How many households buy fresh cucumbers and apples only to let them rot in the fridge? How many grocery stores overstock their shelves with bagged lettuce to maintain an image of abundance, only to toss expired bags not purchased in time? How many farmers are unable to sell their produce because it looks imperfect or was not harvested properly?

Food waste is not a new challenge. In fact, it’s an age old crisis that the world continues to try to solve. Following nearly three years of intense fighting in World War I (WWI), on August 10, 1917, the United States established the U.S. Food Administration to manage wartime food supply and distribution and reduce food waste. Popular slogans at the time such as “Food will win the war” encouraged people not to waste their groceries and to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. The U.S. Food Administration encouraged: “Food: buy it with thought, cook it with care…serve just enough, use what is left, don’t waste it.” 

Food waste does not just result from fresh produce not being eaten. It also results from exposure to bacteria, animal feces and even human touch in the growing and packaging processes that cause our produce to spoil. Unlike traditional outdoor farming, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) significantly reduces exposure to bacteria, weather, animals, and other forces that can cause damage to crops. As a result, one of the largest sustainability-related impacts of CEA is that it offers a drastic reduction in food waste. During WWI, indoor victory gardens popped up across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany as governments recognized the ability to safely and abundantly grow fresh produce indoors and reduce the pressure on the public food supply in a time of extreme rationing.

Since the early 1900s, and the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture’s campaign “A Vegetable Garden for Every Home,” indoor farming has come a very long way. From customized genetics to state-of-the art technologies that monitor everything from climate to nutrient content, there’s no question that CEA disrupts conventional outdoor agriculture. Produce is grown indoors often with zero residue of pesticides or herbicides. Given its minimal exposure to the elements, produce grown indoors can have 10 times to 1,000 times less bacteria than food grown outdoors, further reducing spoilage. Due to the hyperlocal nature of CEA farms – think less than 100 miles to the grocer compared to over 1,100 miles, on average, for conventional agriculture – produce can be delivered to stores within hours or days of harvest, expanding shelf life significantly. Outdoor grown lettuce tends to have a three to five-day shelf life, while greens grown indoors can last up to five weeks! As an added bonus, the short distance from farm to retailer means lower greenhouse gas emissions during transit. Food grown in CEA facilities might just be the answer to preserving quality, freshness and value for consumers and retailers.

As our name implies, here at Local Bounti our product is hyperlocal and our harvests are bountiful. We are connected to our community, bringing fresh, local produce to the neighborhoods we live in and grow in. Our modular indoor facility provides an ideal controlled environment for our herbs and leafy greens to thrive. We grow hydroponically, submerging our plants’ roots in a nutrient-rich water solution rather than in soil, cutting down significantly on their exposure to bacteria. In addition, since we grow indoors, we can cultivate our produce 24/7, 365 days per year. 

Importantly, our growing methods are very sustainable. We use 90% less water than conventional outdoor farming with no run-off.  Our indoor facility leverages an ideal combination of natural and artificial light and is less than 100 miles from each of our retail partners, significantly reducing our carbon footprint when transporting food to retailers. In addition, given the hyperlocal nature of our facility, our produce is picked at the peak of freshness and nutrient density, landing on retail shelves within 48 hours of harvest.

Local Bounti is a win-win for both the consumer and the retailer. The consumer is able to purchase better quality food at the same price or lower than retail, while grocers reduce shrinkage, minimize their risk of recalls and have a more reliable, consistent supply chain.

Local Bounti’s process is a win-win for both the consumer and the retailer. The consumer is able to purchase better quality food at the same price or lower than retail; they can trust the safety of how their food is grown and packaged; and they are able to make fresh salads for weeks on end with just a single trip to the grocery store. Grocers reduce shrinkage as a result the longer shelf life of Local Bounti’s produce; they minimize their risk of recalls from bacteria exposure; and they have a more reliable, consistent supply chain that they can count on year round. These benefits, combined with shortened food miles, result in 10% to 30% less food waste for the grocer on average. 

At our Bitterroot facility in Hamilton, Montana, we grow living herbs, living lettuce and cut lettuce varieties. Given our highly replicable, but proprietary model, we anticipate that Local Bounti will be able to expand our product count and number of locations in the near future and bring our sustainable growing methods across the globe. Just like Bitterroot, each of our growing facilities will be designed for automation and efficiency, significantly reducing food waste, cost and miles, while increasing quality, quantity and reliability. While there is still much to accomplish before our world has enough food to feed a population of nearly 10 billion by 2050, CEA and Local Bounti will hopefully help begin to close the gap between food demand and food availability. As author Katherine Anne Porter once said, “You waste life when you waste good food.” Let’s take the next steps in reducing food waste and preserving good food. Our planet certainly needs it.

At Local Bounti we love happy plants. Our plants are kept in the ideal environment from the initial seedlings to the packaged products, ensuring that our produce stays fresh and delicious for weeks. You will no doubt smell and taste the difference of Local Bounti herbs and leafy greens. In order to bring our farm to your kitchen and deliver the freshest, locally grown produce in the fewest miles possible, we must ensure that we not only cultivate our plants properly but also our culture. Our mission is rooted in sustainability and in turn human welfare, and we have a truly unique culture when it comes to the agriculture industry. 

So what is the traditional ag industry like? Unfortunately, traditional outdoor farming is often characterized by its harsh working conditions coupled with low wages. According to the Department of Labor, nearly 25% of farm workers today earn a family income below the federal poverty line – that is less than $22,000 a year for a family of three. With fewer than 1% of farm workers in the United States belonging to a union, there is often no one advocating on their behalf for a fair living wage. In addition, given the seasonality of industry, outdoor agriculture companies are frequently unable to provide workers with full-year employment or benefits. 

In addition to low pay, the working conditions can be grueling – long hours of manual labor, unfavorable weather conditions and overexposure to pesticides and herbicides. Farming is also one of the few industries where the entire family, who may also work on the farm or live on the premises, is at risk for injury and illness. As a result of these harsh working conditions, injury rates for U.S. farm workers are very high. In fact, agriculture ranks among the most hazardous industries according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.  

We recognize that our industry has a long way to go when it comes to improving worker welfare, safety and pay. The controlled environment agriculture (CEA) space in which Local Bounti operates, however, is beginning to make important strides in improving working conditions. As we grow indoors, CEA provides full-time, full-year jobs versus the transient labor often associated with traditional outdoor agriculture. We are also able to establish our indoor farms (greenhouses, vertical farms, container farms, and more) in underserved Opportunity Zones. By building our farms in urban, economically distressed areas, we are able to create much needed employment for the region while also bringing food security to areas that are often 1,000 miles away from fresh produce. Salaries for indoor agriculture also tend to be higher than traditional outdoor farming. That said, based on our internal research of the competitive CEA landscape, CEA worker pay is still below the living wage.

Local Bounti employees are healthy and empowered. Our employees are valued and respected. They have a passion for their work and for Local Bounti’s success.

This brings us back to the beginning of our discussion – Local Bounti’s truly unique industry culture. Local Bounti employees are healthy and empowered. Our employees are valued and respected. They have a passion for their work and for Local Bounti’s success. This shared passion for achievement is the lifeblood of our company. 

Why are our employees so happy? Every single one of Local Bounti’s employees is offered a living wage and full benefits. In fact, full-time employees at our Bitterroot Facility in Hamilton, Montana make $2.00 more per hour than average for similar agriculture jobs in the state. In addition, unlike the grueling hours of outdoor farming, our team has standard working hours to ensure a work/life balance.

Did you know that in addition to being experts in controlled environment agriculture (CEA), Local Bounti is also a leader in sustainability? Local Bounti exhibits exceptional ESG performance, directly addressing over one-half of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Our Vice President of Strategy, Gary Gilbert, who is a certified Global Reporting Initiative reporter, is responsible for developing and implementing Local Bounti’s sustainability program, ensuring that we are a world leader in sustainable and efficient CEA.

So what are the sustainable development goals (SDGs)? In 2015, all U.N. Member States, which includes the United States, adopted a 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the core of this agenda were 17 SDGs, “an urgent call to action by all countries – developed and developing.” These 17 goals are meant to advise companies and their nations on how to best run their businesses in a way that will address key issues from hunger and climate change to racial inequality, health and education, with an ultimate goal that all people across the globe can enjoy peace and prosperity by the year 2030.

The 17 SDGs follow a long-standing principle first spoken by Aristotle that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In other words, 1+1=3. Each of the goals, and actions associated with achieving them, therefore affects the outcomes of the others; they build upon one another, rather than stand to be achieved individually. The SDGs ask for a balance of environmental, social and economic sustainability. 

2020 was an incredibly challenging year for the planet that reversed much of the progress previously achieved toward fulfilling the U.N.’s 17 SDGs. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, notes in the SDG 2020 Report, “Although the novel coronavirus affects every person and community, it does not do so equally. Instead, it has exposed and exacerbated existing inequalities and injustices… Far from undermining the case for the SDGs, the root causes and uneven impacts of COVID-19 demonstrate precisely why we need the 2030 Agenda… At the start of this Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs, I call for renewed ambition, mobilization, leadership and collective action.” 

What are some of the key findings of the 2020 report? As you can imagine, the world is off-track to end poverty by 2030. COVID-19 resulted in the first increase in global poverty in decades. Over 71 million people, the 2020 report notes, were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020. Food insecurity was already increasing prior to the pandemic, with nearly 26% of the population affected by moderate or severe food insecurity at the end of 2019, an increase of ~60 million people since 2014. Small-scale food producers already facing challenges were only hit harder as a result of the pandemic when local markets were forced to close, and they could not get their products to consumers safely.

Maintaining a high-quality, safe and consistent food supply is only becoming a greater challenge. The U.N. notes that investments in agriculture, relative to its contribution to the economy, continue to decline. The 2020 Report concludes that “public investment in agriculture can enhance productivity, attract private investment and help reduce poverty and hunger.” The findings also show that there remain substantial gaps in assessing progress toward the sustainable goals and thus investments in “data and innovation are key to responding to the crisis and to supporting SDG acceleration.”

Local Bounti is actively addressing the world’s dire sustainability challenges. A rare breed, Local Bounti adheres to 10 of the 17 UN Sustainability Development Goals.

Public equity investors are investing in sustainable leaders, specifically those companies that follow superior environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards, more than ever before. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investments’ (U.S. SIF) Biennial Trend Report from November 2020, concluded that sustainable investing assets now account for 1 in every 3 dollars of total U.S. assets under professional management today. That’s a 42% increase since 2018. Bloomberg Intelligence Global’s “ESG 2021 Outlook” predicts that ESG assets may top $53 trillion by 2025. This data shows that: 1) there is an unprecedented demand for investment in sustainable companies, and 2) by default there should also be a tremendous demand for those companies that are able to address key sustainability challenges, whether that be zero hunger, worker welfare, affordable and clean energy or climate change. Naturally, CEA companies fit right into that second category of companies addressing ESG challenges. As a result, in 2020, over $1 billion of growth equity was invested in U.S. CEA companies, and this figure only continues to grow. 

Local Bounti is one of those companies actively addressing the world’s dire sustainability challenges.  A rare breed, Local Bounti addresses 10 of the 17 SDGs:

• SGG 2 – No Hunger – Local Bounti’s hyperlocal farm enables us to provide fresh produce to the Western United States, an area often considered a food desert.
• SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation – Local Bounti’s indoor growing processes use 90% less water as compared to conventional outdoor agriculture. This drastic reduction in water usage conserves resources and, as is often the case in traditional agriculture, does not produce polluted water runoff. 
• SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy – Our facility in Hamilton, Montana (Bitterroot), is energy efficient using the ideal combination of natural and artificial light to grow our plants.
• SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth – Local Bounti provides all employees full-time jobs with full benefits, a rarity in the agriculture industry. 
• SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure – We are investing in sustainable infrastructure and technologies that will improve efficiencies, decrease costs and reduce waste passing the benefit of lower-priced, higher-quality fresh produce to consumers and retailers.
• SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities – By opening our Bitterroot facility in an underserved region of the country, we bring much needed employment, taxes and investment to Hamilton, Montana and the surrounding cities.
• SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production – Local Bounti’s produce has a shelf life of three to five weeks, compared to three to five days for field-grown produce. This extended shelf life significantly reduces food waste. In addition, given our location, our fresh produce gets to retailers quicker. Shorter food miles reduce grocer waste by 10% to 30%, on average.
• SDG 13 – Climate Action – The “local nature” of Local Bounti drastically reduces emissions from food supply chain transportation. Our farm is less than 100 miles from our retail partners, compared to over 1,100 miles, on average, for conventional agriculture. 
• SDG 14 – Life Below Water – The only water lost in our growing process is through natural evaporation or absorption by our plants. This eliminates agricultural runoff that contributes to ocean pollution. We also grow our plants without the use of pesticides or herbicides, which have drastically impacted the quality of our global water supply.
• SDG 15 – Life on Land – Our indoor farm uses 90% less land than outdoor farming, reducing the impact on wildlife and the overall environment. 

Our discussion today only touches the surface of Local Bounti’s commitment to sustainability. We look forward to continuing to share our sustainability achievements. In the meantime, you can read about how we are pioneering working welfare, SDG 8, here (link to other piece) and reducing food waste, SDG 16, here (link to other piece). We are excited to be part of the mission to bring our world closer to peace and prosperity by 2030. 

While COVID-19 may have set the overall U.N. SDGs’ progress back, it has only heightened our passion for strengthening the world’s food supply, giving back, connecting with our community and delivering products that support health, wellness and family. With goals as important as these, we know that the runway for Local Bounti and CEA is long and that the pathway to achieving our mission will be nothing short of extraordinary.