Vegg Inc., a Pulaski company, recently celebrated the harvest of its first lettuce grown using an innovative technology that utilizes recycled carbon.
Inside a historic, previously vacant school building in downtown Pulaski, spring mix lettuce was cut and presented to a group of supporters and collaborators, including Michael Evans, chair of Virginia Tech's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. . The university has partnered with Veg to support the development of agricultural students.
“This technology actually pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere and concentrates it and brings it back in,” Evans said. “So we're actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere.”
Evans said climate change and population growth around the world will require growing more food in controlled environments like indoor greenhouses and vertical farms. Not all plants grow like this, and often some need to pump CO2 into the air to optimize production. Most lettuce grown indoors gets its carbon dioxide from natural gas, he says. This lettuce is different.
The group that designed the technology, also based in Pulaski, called MOVA, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Energy, as well as state funds and private investment.
Pulaski County Administrator Jonathan Sweet was also there to celebrate the first harvest of lettuce. He said he looks forward to seeing the technology grow within the old school building.
“And it's important that it becomes an education center, which is really great because it goes back to what the original facility was here for,” Sweet said.
Virginia Tech is working with Veg to use the site as a training facility to teach agriculture students how to vertically farm using recycled carbon technology.
Sweet said the county and the Town of Pulaski loaned Begg $1 million to purchase the school building. They gave him one year to repay the loan, but extended the deadline.
