Jonathan Webb
By this time next year, AppHarvest expects to have begun production in the 2.76-million-square-foot greenhouse the company is building in Morehead, Kentucky. The $97 million building will be the biggest greenhouse in the country and among the largest in the world when completed, encompassing 60 acres and with a capacity to ship 45 million pounds of fresh produce annually — primarily tomatoes — to grocers throughout the Midwest, Southeast and as far north as New York within a day’s drive.
Bolstering the domestic production of our food supplies is critical in securing a stable future, says AppHarvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb, as is creating an environment where government, private businesses and research institutions work together to support and further these agricultural efforts.
Facing a food shortage following World War II, the Netherlands has since grown to become the agricultural capital of Europe. And Webb sees every opportunity for Kentucky to similarly position itself as the ag-tech capital of the United States.
In June, Webb took part in a press conference along with Gov. Andy Beshear, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, Dutch dignitaries and representatives from the 17 organizations who entered into an agreement to work together to transform Eastern Kentucky into an epicenter for ag-tech development. Gov. Beshear also announced a state task force, which he will lead, to further support these efforts.
Webb, a University of Kentucky graduate, share more in the following conversation.
At what point in the development of AppHarvest did it become apparent that this needs to be a larger effort and that more partners should be involved?
It’s been our strategy from day one to go really big picture on this and not make it about just a couple of facilities, but an entire ecosystem. We’re not just building steel-and-glass structures. Yes, those are the most fundamental and biggest part of what we’re doing, but the moment we got the funding secured to build this first facility, I allotted my time personally to work toward this larger effort. Which is, how do we get our universities here working with universities in the Netherlands? How do we get the best companies in the Netherlands committed to working with our universities here? And then, the last piece was, how do we convince our government that this is a big industry that our state can grab?
When completed, AppHarvest’s 2.76-million-square-foot greenhouse in Morehead, Kentucky, will be the largest in the country.
AppHarvest is one company and we want to be successful in our own lane, but there are 10,000 companies in the Netherlands supporting the industry there, and we’re not going to be able to accomplish these objectives on our own. We’re happy to help build a larger table instead of trying to be the only party at the table.
What are the benefits of working hand-in-hand with the Dutch instead of just using their technology?
They call it the triple helix — it’s government, universities and the private sector working together — and they really have mastered that model better than almost anywhere else in the world.
Instead of us pulling ideas out of thin air, it’s asking ‘how do we do what you’ve done? How do we do it faster? What’s worked and what hasn’t worked?’ And [the Dutch] government has been incredibly transparent.
As far as the universities, we’re looking for basic knowledge transfer and information sharing. Their universities have been studying this for decades, and of course we’re already working with companies that are based over there, and we’re also working to get them offices in Kentucky.
In this world of controlled-environment agriculture, we’ve had the best in the world flying into Lexington, hitting I-64 and heading east. What means for the city — we’re still trying to wrap our heads around it — but Lexington is going to be a part of this, for sure.
In this increasingly global economy, why is it important to grow our own food supply?
Well, if COVID hasn’t taught us how structurally broken or on the verge of broken many of our systems are — whether it’s food, energy or health care — I don’t know what will. We have pushed our production out of this country, and we’re heavily reliant on Mexico to stock our shelves with fresh fruits and vegetables. We’re vulnerable, and we’ve got to do something to change that. The good thing is, we can.
"This is nationwide problem, and Kentucky can be part of the solution of building a more resilient food system and ensuring that we have large-scale food production here." — Jonathan Webb
This is nationwide problem, and Kentucky can be part of the solution of building a more resilient food system and ensuring that we have large-scale food production here. We know what the problems are, and we have a lot of people coming to the table and saying they want to lead. Now it’s just a matter of putting the solutions in place and positioning our state to be out front in bringing food production home and having a strong supply of year-round production.
What about getting large retailers on board?
Frankly that was the easiest thing for us. The demand for U.S. produced controlled-environment [agriculture] is through the roof. We’ll be in the top 25 grocers — all the big names. Let’s be clear, though, we have to compete on price, and that’s why we had to build so big. We had to build a 60-acre facility to get our unit economics down to where we can compete with a tomato coming out of Mexico, but is it fair? I don’t particularly feel that it’s fair, and that’s why governments need to be at the table.
Our competition down in Mexico is paying people less than $5 a day, and they’re using chemical pesticides three times a week that you can only use once a year in the U.S. But there’s nothing we can do about that, because we still have to get grocers tomatoes at or under the pricing that they already have.
Some people have expressed concern about pushing out small Kentucky farmers. What are your thoughts?
We want to support farmers in Kentucky, and fight to get them onto the shelves with us. Our team is very passionate about this. And to help the small farmer, we need to get large production year-round onto the shelves. The problem is, small farmers can’t grow outdoors in [the winter], so we’re going to take our facilities offline in the summer months.
Big last number here — 1.2 billion pounds of tomatoes were imported annually from Mexico 10 to 15 years ago, and last year it was four billion pounds. We have quietly shifted all of our production out of this country south of the border, and we have put the farmers here in the U.S. in peril. None of us here locally are going to be able to compete with the 4 billion pounds of tomatoes coming out of Mexico. Our facility, as big as it is in Morehead, is only 45 million pounds of tomatoes.
To help the small farmers — who frankly do not have a voice with these large grocers — we’re going to have to fight together to push the imports off the shelf and get local production on. We will do everything we possibly can.