Most of the lettuce grown in the United States comes from California or Arizona, where certain regions have been dubbed the nation’s “salad bowl.”
But for the last 18 months, more than 12 tons of the green stuff consumed in south Louisiana — enough for tens of thousands of garden salads — has originated from a source much closer to home: an indoor farm tucked away behind a Chevy dealership in Harvey.
Based in a brick office building and metal warehouse on Leson Court, the $2 million AgriAquaculture Center of Excellence is an “aquaponic” farming operation that uses nutrient-rich water from fish tanks to grow lettuce floating in water instead of rooted in soil. The facility, founded and funded by the nonprofit Louisiana Chamber of Commerce Foundation, donates and sells its produce while also teaching entrepreneurs how to build their own urban farming businesses.
The project already has produced tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of lettuce, trained a few dozen aspiring farmers and made a fan out of Gov. Jeff Landry, who visited the space last year. Its founders have bigger plans, including a $1.5 million expansion, a collaboration with Jefferson Parish schools and a potential sales agreement with one of the region’s grocers. They’re approaching aquaponics — which emerged as a commercially viable category of agriculture in the last couple of decades — as economic development…