Want to turn your backyard into an urban farm?
Meet the company planting crops on stadium rooftops, tech campuses and private residences
By Karla Kane
Palo Alto Weekly
Nov 2, 2023
Excerpt:
What’s known as Silicon Valley today was once called the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” for its blossoming orchards and bountiful farmland. While the land has been built up over the years, with many folks likely out of touch with the area’s agricultural heritage, one company is working to maintain a connection to that tradition.
Farmscape, a company with branches (no pun intended) in both northern and southern California is on a mission to establish gardens and farms in just about every imaginable space in Silicon Valley – think residential backyards, tech campuses, sports stadium rooftops and multi-family complexes.
According to co-founder Lara Hermanson, Farmscape is the largest urban farming company in the state, supporting around 50 full-time green jobs, growing (actual) tons of food, and transforming land that may otherwise be paved over or used for water-guzzling lawns.
Hermanson founded the company in Los Angeles with partner Dan Allen in 2008, when they were inspired to combine their agricultural background with a desire to live and work in an urban environment. Farmscape’s northern California headquarters was developed about a decade ago.
The company works everywhere from residential yards to multi-family housing developments and major commercial spaces with the goal to reconnect communities with where their food comes from and cultivate crops and landscape designs that suit California’s climate and native habitats.
