Here’s a novel business idea: farming. Turn your extra room or that spare tool-shed or warehouse out back into a clean, organic, soil-less, cash growing machine. Science-y indoor “aeroponic” farming can make massive amounts of high-margin crops very quickly and with no insects—once you can get the bugs out, of course.

Overview

Many people have discovered a science that can produce amazing crops incredibly quickly, do so in just about any space, organically, and for a minimal amount of capital. Using this science you can make real money starting out of your house. Of course, we wouldn’t get this crazy if there weren’t real people out there making money in this amazing new trend, like this guy profiled in the Wall Street Journal.

The basis of all this is aeroponics, a relatively new agro-science that allows us to optimize growing conditions to get from double to thirty-times the production per crop. It uses 95% less water and nearly half the nutrients and is even used to grow bio-pharma crops. The US government’s Urban Gardening program estimates that a $1 investment in food growing projects yields $6 of produce. This practice is undergoing constant study and evolution, and has been vetted by scientists and governments around the world, including NASA. It is used by governments, astronauts, and Disney to make 20,000 lbs of food per year for Disney World. People are home-farming all over the place now. Get over your old notion of farming and go start this simple, profitable business.

Business Potential

There are a few crops that will earn you way more dollars per unit of effort. Costs are based on low yields (less than 200lbs per month) and include electricity, seed, and nutrients. Equipment cost will be approached later (don’t worry it’s relatively low). Here are our top picks:

1st place: Tomatoes

Cost per pound: $0.114
Revenue per pound: $2.50 (farmers market), $1.00 (wholesale)
Advantage: Tasty and very high yield. Excellent up-market niches. Easy to sell.
Disadvantage: Slightly finicky, require support structures.

2nd place: Herbs (Basil example)

Cost per plant: $0.20
Revenue per plant: $2.50 (farmers market), $1.25 (wholesale)
Advantage: Incredibly fast and high yield. Simple equipment.
Disadvantage: Smaller total market.

Growing with Science

Let’s go through Farming and Aeroponics 101 real quick here. You’re internetty so you can do more research at the links I’ll provide. Here are the basics of what you need to know (so read more about these):

• Plants use light, nutrients, water, and gasses (air) to grow.
• Regular earth suspends some of the above, acting as nature’s time-release.
• Many plants can grow as quickly as they can acquire the above in proper quantities.
• Aeroponics uses no soil. You suspend a plants roots in air however you can.
• To deliver all that other stuff, combine and spray it at the roots. The gasses needed are mostly sufficient in the regular air around the mist (and now around the roots).
• The droplet size is adjusted based on all sorts of factors, but generally smaller droplets produce big crazy root systems that can suck up lots of air and nutrients.
• Hydroponics shops and the internets sell premix nutrients to get you started.
• You need a ton of light, but these days that problem is largely solved thanks to very cheap daylight balanced T5 lights (the spiral compact fluorescent ones that say 100W equivalent and are at Walmart now).

It’s seriously this simple. You need to make (or buy) a plant support structure, a spraying-fogging system, and get lots of lights. Though the spraying and lighting cost money, it is incredibly quick breakeven. The new breed of high intensity daylight fluorescents out now dramatically reduce start-up costs. They can also be complemented with red and blue LED Arrays which use barely any power and emit a ton of plant-specific light. Be creative here. Look at what is out there, think about the AeroGarden (this is not truly aeroponic but it uses the same principles and works comparably well), don’t get overly worried with light intensity, droplet size, or nutrient combo, and start experimenting in small batches.

More infos on building and Aeroponics in general: fogger, Aeroponics, Lighting, Hydroponics, AeroGarden Internals, Hydro and lighting

Going into Business

Once you have a design, chosen a crop (or two), and have iterated on the above factors, step up and build a larger structure. To sell at a local farmers’ market, you’ll need to come with a fair amount of product. I recommend choosing a specific niche like becoming the known for Italian foods. Have the best heirloom tomatoes, basil, zucchini, etc. If you took that idea further though, you might have to make some Mozzarella di Bufala. That might be a bit much, but it would be a relatively simple matter to make a big vat of Ricotta. Alternatively, be the Heirloom Guy, or Basil Guy, or whatever.

Once you’re going, you’ll probably want about 60 days before going to the market. Many of these crops are harvestable within a month of planting, but you’ll want to fine tune things, and get the few other things you need for your business (see The Red Tape below) in order

The Red Tape

Hopefully people are going to consume the products you’re making, and it turns out that us Americans are very particular about making sure what we eat is safe. Though you don’t need to pass any health tests before you order four Big Macs for yourself, you simply cannot sell a tomato without jumping through quite a few hoops to prove it won’t hurt anyone. Smaller towns can skip this section entirely. This is probably for the best, but the heavy regulation is also a pretty sad reflection on our super-sized distrustful cities. To sell at the Durham, NC farmers’ market for instance, you simply need to pay your $20 application fee and then $50/year. The organizers know how to weed out troublemakers.

The same can not be said for places like Los Angeles. In fact most larger cities will have similar procedures. Basically none of this is all that bad or expensive, and often not even that time consuming. It’s more going to be a few awkward moments with an inspector who comes out expecting to see a farm, thinking he’s lost, then being a little peeved that he’s having to step over your x-box to make sure the soil (what soil?) has not been treated with pesticides. Also you’ll need to be keeping records of what you do and what nutrients you’re using. Here is what you will need based on the LA example, which should be considered a superset of any normal town.

To sell at a Farmers’ Market

• If it is a Certified Market (CFM), you need a Certified Producers Certificate (CPC).
  In some ways this is cumbersome, but it also slightly lightens regulation. You’ll be covered by the CFM’s Health Certificate, and they are trusted to self-enforce. In applying for this, they might send someone by to make sure you’re producing your stuff in the appropriate area and that you aren’t sneaking in razor blades (or E. Coli). It might help when you apply for certification to describe your space as a “greenhouse at my house” instead of “my livingroom”. A great rundown on the laws of this is here.
  
• Application to Sell at particular market.
  Many run several markets and a single application will apply to all.
• Phone call to market manager to get a space.
  A market won’t want a ton of people selling the exact same thing, but of course you’ve chosen a nice little niche, right?

If you do well, the government wants to keep an eye on you. If you want a sweet ass Certified Organic logo, or when you do over $5,000/year in sales you’ll also need:

• USDA Organic Certification (for organic cert).
  They don’t want to do the work though. Instead they just certify others to certify, so check their list to find one of those certified certifiers (hah!). Seriously though, call your local agency for help. It’s way easier than attempting to net research it because it’s all so location specific.

If you want to sell anything by weight, we can’t forget:

• Seal from your local Weights and Measures agency

And lastly, if you decide to make packaged foods (DON’T) you’ll need:

• Health Department Facility Approval

Start-up Costs (Farmers’ Market Scale)

Plant Support Structures: $550
Pump(s): $350
Nozzles and plumbing: $75

Total startup: $975

Variable Expenses

Electricity: 400W @$0.12/kw/H x16hr/day =$20-30/mo
Water: $5/mo
Nutrients: $25
Stall/booth rental: $5.00-$150/mo
Supplies: $20/mo (plastic bags, baskets, signs)
Time: 24hrs/mo farming + 4hrs/day x 4 markets/mo = 40hrs/mo

Total variable monthly: $75-$230

Revenue

Tomatoes: 75lbs per market x 4 markets per month (during summer) = 300lbs @ $2.5 = $750/mo

The Next Level

After you have this figured out and ramped up for the farmers’ market (FM), you can definitely think about expanding. Recommended routes at this point are:

• Use FM interest to sell produce/herb “subscriptions.” Customers pick up a premix box every week, or it could be delivered to them.
• Use the above but mail-order style Fedex locally (or nationwide?).
• Sell to restaurants. If you can produce consistently high quality ingredients, you give them a huge advantage and they can advertise it as local and organic.
• Sell to the local gourmet markets like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, a Food Co-op, etc. Your stuff is organic, remember?

Conclusion

It’s old, yet incredibly new and high-tech. It’s novel, fun, and tasty. The wow factor will get you press and definitely confuse your friends. In the end though, the world needs food, and there is money to be made selling high-quality organic crops. Just because it’s not dirty and you don’t need a tractor doesn’t mean it isn’t real and viable. That organic tomato picked a few hours ago and served on a Caprese in the local restaurant is sure going to taste better than the one that has been sitting in ethylene and malathion and endosulfan for two weeks on the truck from Honduras (or Florida).