Our current project is to build the groundwork for Sustainable Ag Hub (SAH)
SAH is an initiative for an integrated, renewable-energy, Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) complex serving the Northeast region of the US.
Our current project is to build the groundwork for Sustainable Ag Hub (SAH)
SAH is an initiative for an integrated, renewable-energy, Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) complex serving the Northeast region of the US.
THE PROBLEM WITH FOOD
Field agriculture no longer provides food resiliency, and it adversely affects the environment.
The bottom line is we have lost food resiliency.
Modern food production and distribution systems are built for scale, speed, and efficiency, but those very strengths create a host of vulnerabilities. The system often prioritizes uniformity and volume over nutrition, freshness, or community benefit. Large industrial farms often rely on monocultures, heavy chemical inputs, and long supply chains that stretch across states or continents.
This system can create climate disruptions, transportation bottlenecks, labor shortages, and market volatility. These operations also face environmental pressures, including soil degradation and water scarcity. And food grown far from where it is consumed must pass through processors, distributors, and retailers, each step adding cost and increasing the chance of waste and contributing to emissions.
WE BELIEVE THERE IS A BETTER WAY
Sustainable Ag Hub (SAH) is a proposed regional supply platform for a controlled-environment agriculture cooperative.
What if food could be grown regionally without the issue of climate or native soil quality?
That is the question that Sustainable Ag Hub seeks to answer and develop.
Utilizing controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) mitigates the effects of fertilizer and pesticide contamination, excessive use of water, food waste, emissions, and climate effects.
The SAH model proposes a low-cost, rural hub of CEA greenhouses to serve multiple major markets within a next-day delivery window.
Low operating costs could be achieved by:
- Low-cost renewable power
- Using available, lower-cost land further from urban areas
- Sustainable water
- Highway access
- Existing industrial infrastructure
- Agricultural and industrial labor pool
- Potential for shared infrastructure
- Regional distribution reach
Ok, but hasn’t this ALREADY been done?
Two models encourage the efficacy of this model: Peri-Urban greenhouse centers and a Greenhouse Cluster in Leamington Ontario. The proposed SAH plan builds on these models to create a system that is scalable and economically feasible long term.
The scale of the Northeast’s appetite for greenhouse produce has been proven. Today it is largely satisfied from Leamington, Ontario, home to more than 170 growers and over 3,800 acres of greenhouses*. This is North America’s largest concentration of indoor agriculture. Roughly 85% of that production is exported to the United States; some 300 trailer-loads leave the region’s farms every day. Two-thirds of them head south, much of it into the Northeast.
* source: https://www.thepacker.com
But, the Leamington cluster is hitting hard limits: its water supply is at capacity, energy costs are climbing, and Ontario growers face carbon taxes rising toward hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of the decade. More significantly, there is no single organizing entity supporting these growers, and its success is limited by what each grower can accomplish individually. The key difference in the SAH model is the economy of scale provided by organizing as a hub of growers who are able to acquire crucial resources on an as needed basis.
The bottom line: it has been demonstrated that a well-placed U.S. hub is positioned to win. To that end, SAH is proposing a Northeast hub of growers that sits close to the customer, can be organized as a single cohesive supplier rather than a scattering of independent operations, can run at lower cost, and is not exposed to tariffs, currency swings, or a hardening border.
THE PROPOSED
SUSTAINABLE AG HUB MODEL
The primary objective of the SAH Groundwork Project is to identify and validate a model that avoids the issues with the existing models.
SAH proposes creation of a 1,000+ acre CEA industrial park operating as a fully integrated cooperative of independent growers, cultivating varied produce for a Northeast market of ~100 million consumers.
This cooperative model turns members’ fixed costs into manageable variable costs offsetting the costs of CEA.
Resource and Emissions Impact
95%
LESS WATER THAN
OPEN FIELD
1000 CEA acres of lettuce ~ 10 billion gallons/yr saved vs. Western supply.
12x
YIELD PER ACRE PER YEAR VS OUTDOOR
1000 CEA acres frees ~ 11,000 acres for carbon-sequester vegetation
160k
METRIC TONS CO2 / YR
AVOIDED ~ 35,000 CARS
~82% of lettuce's footprint originates in field growing
+30%
PLANT GROWTH FROM CAPTURED CO2
Captured combustion CO2 forms carbon offsets.
how does the SAH model make this work?
The SAH model includes several elements that create economic feasibility and scalability.
Cooperative Model
SAH is intended as a coordinated platform of multiple independent growers. SAH will facilitate independent operations while reaping the benefits of sharing selected services and infrastructure. SAH-owned facilities will be billed per use, allowing for growers of all sizes.
Shared resources will leverage economy of scale
- Building on our campus means that the individual grower's capital investment is lowered- freeing cash for operations reduces investment risk and results in quicker ROI.
- Central produce-refrigeration storage — removes member-level excess capacity
- Shared transportation center with EV charging
- Packing operations (e.g. salad-kit assembly)
- Tech support (pest control) and central QC
- Marketing & PR, including CEA branding.
- Shared digester biomethane for thermal energy and cost stability
- Sustainability, climate-remediation & resiliency consulting
- Aggregated purchasing economies on common inputs
- Clam-shell / packaging — candidate for local manufacture
- Pipeline CO₂ supply to members to raise yield
- Water treatment
- Grant and public-funding coordination
- Research and crop testing
- Biogas / CHP infrastructure
The Cycle of Sustainability - Circularity
- Feedstock
Greenhouse waste + metro food waste - Anaerobic Digestion
Breaks down feedstock - Renewable Biomethane
Fossil-free gas - CHP Engines
Greenhouse thermal energy + power - CO2 Captured
Effluent redirected to the plants
Reduced Food Waste
There is inherent waste of 30% to 40% in field grown produce due to lessened capability to judge market conditions. transportation and handling fall off, and shorter growing "days". Compare this to CEA food waste which is aproximately 5%.
Controlled Environment Agriculture
- CEA techniques use 95% less water than traditional open-field growing
- CEA can yield 12 times more per acre per year than growing outdoors.
- CEA is climate-proof, devoid of harmful pesticides, and will deliver a consistent year-round supply.
- CEA can be consumed without “triple-washing,” a requirement for all outdoor-grown produce used by restaurants and institutions, which results in waste and added labor.
Renewable energy sources: turning food waste into energy
- SAH is planned as a closed system for fully sustainable energy resources.
- We will be generating renewable biomethane as a fossil-free source of gas from food waste.
- Thermal energy produced on-site is used on demand - decoupling production cost from peak loads and natural-gas price escalation that growers cannot control
Rather than depend on fossil natural gas, with its volatile prices and carbon burden, the hub is designed to generate its own renewable thermal energy from waste. It is not new technology, but a novel method and system that improves the efficiency of established technology, deployed in a novel patent pending way.
At the center sits an anaerobic digester. It takes in urban food waste, which can no longer legally go to landfills and which emits methane (a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) as it decomposes, and converts it into renewable biogas. That biogas fuels combined heat and power (CHP) engines that supply both heat and CO2 to the greenhouses. The CO2, instead of being vented, is fed back to the plants, where it acts as “plant food” and can enhance growth by up to 30%. Plant waste from the greenhouses, including root systems and spent vegetation, is cycled back into the same digester.
Location
- SAH will utilize low-cost, available land.
Currently, the Massena / North Country area of New York is targeted due to several factors: - Power
Fossil-free hydropower below 5¢/kWh, drawn from NYPA stranded assets. - Water
Plentiful local supply. - Labor
Available skilled workforce with skills accustomed to agriculture. - Land
Relatively low-cost due to availability of idle farm land in the region. - Transport
Direct highway access - Economic factors
The US footprint eliminates tariff exposure, currency-exchange volatility, elevated cost of capital, labor shortages, and cross-border transit delays - Proximity to Consumers
Within one day’s access to urban areas across the Northeast Region - Renewable energy sources
- SAH is planned as a closed system for fully sustainable energy resources.
- Renewable power sources are being reviewed including generating renewable biomethane as a fossil-free source of gas from food waste.
- Thermal energy produced on-site is used on demand - decoupling production cost from peak loads and natural-gas price escalation that growers cannot control.
Copyright 2026, Climate Remediation Foundation, Inc.