When salesman Jack Hussey finishes his work day, he closes the laptop, leaves his home in Malahide and walks 10 minutes down the road. At the bottom of his friend’s farm sits an outhouse with a coldroom which now hosts his side business, Upfarm. A farm that goes upwards.
Imagine a shelf rack, says Hussey. “We’ve kitted the roofs of each shelf with an LED grow light. It’s to replicate the sunlight basically.”
A photo of the farm shows purple light beaming down on thick heads of lemongrass and basil, stacked on shelves. He likens it to real estate. “You can have houses that are populated side by side or you can start going upwards with apartments.”
Last year he and a school friend, Bill Abbott, began to look into urban farming. “But we were saying, is farming in the ground actually the best route to go?” Hussey says. It’s labour intensive, which didn’t suit the two guys, who work other full-time jobs. Then, in March 2020, Hussey heard a podcast with American urban farmer Curtis Stone.
He had an urban farm where he was using a spin-farming method, says Hussey. “It’s what they call it. You rotate crops out of the ground in a much more efficient way.” Hussey was inspired by that, by somebody making the most of a small bit of land.
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