Brooklyn’s industrial revolution

By Rebecca Dalzell

What if it were as easy to grow a head of lettuce as to make a cup of coffee? Seed pods, like espresso capsules, would snap into glossy trays, with a remote botanist tweaking light and nutrient levels. You would plug it in, fill a tub of water and, before too long, harvest fresh romaine. Andrew Shearer, a co-founder of the Brooklyn startup Farmshelf, thinks this could happen within five years. He is developing a bookcase-sized unit, connected to the internet, that automates the hard parts of growing food. He imagines microgreens sprouting in dark city apartments and tomato plants in corporate cafeterias.