Infinite Acres Opens Agricultural Research Center In The Hague
Collaboration between Infinite Acres and partner companies promises to accelerate growth in the vertical farming industry
Infinite Acres, a technology-focused subsidiary of the American vertical farming company 80 Acres Farms, has opened a first-of-its-kind research center at its Dutch headquarters.
For nearly a decade, 80 Acres Farms has been a global leader in the vertical farming industry, with facilities in the United States and Europe. Today, the company’s production farms supply fresh produce and grab-and-go meals to more than 1,500 retail locations across the eastern United States.
Working with best-in-class technology partners to design, build, and maintain those farms, the Infinite Acres team recognized an opportunity for closer collaboration. The Infinite Acres Field Lab and Experience Center, located near the Dutch greenhouses that have led the world in high-tech agriculture for decades, is a hub for industrial innovation and sustainable solutions.
“Innovation requires collaboration,” says Tisha Livingston, CEO of Infinite Acres and co-founder of 80 Acres Farms. “By bringing partners into our research center, we’re closing a feedback loop and accelerating our learnings, for the benefit of farmers everywhere. This is a collaborative space where we can innovate to solve global problems.” By shortening supply chains, reducing food waste, and producing more food with fewer resources, vertical farming promises a healthier and more sustainable future.
At the Field Lab and Experience Center, researchers and experts from Infinite Acres will work side-by-side with partner companies, including Siemens, Signify, SICK, and TTA, which are directly supporting the project. The facility will also be open to student researchers. Infinite Acres is a member of Wageningen University’s Club of 100, and the company hopes to further its collaboration with Wageningen while engaging TU Delft and other Dutch and American universities.
“With challenges like a growing population and climate change, which, amongst many other severe consequences leads to soil degradation, we must rethink traditional food production. Digitalization and cutting-edge technologies such as AI are key to scale the sustainability impact in food production and vertical farming industry, and it is people who develop this technology to positively impact others,” stated Dirk De Bilde, CEO of Siemens Nederland. “The opening of the Field Lab and Experience Center is an important milestone and sets a new standard for collaboration in vertical farming. It shows our shared commitment to a more sustainable future.”
About Infinite Acres
Infinite Acres is a Dutch-American technology company with a green thumb. A subsidiary of 80 Acres Farms founded in 2019, Infinite Acres combines Dutch horticultural technology with American manufacturing and processing technology for industry-leading innovation in hardware, software, and plant genetics.
About 80 Acres Farms
80 Acres Farms is a vertical farming leader based in Hamilton, Ohio. Founded by Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston in 2015, the company operates indoor farms built with world-class technology and analytics by its Dutch-American technology subsidiary, Infinite Acres. Using 100% renewable electricity and 95% less water per pound of produce, the company’s farms provide consumers with a range of pesticide-free harvests that last longer at home, reducing food waste and exceeding the highest standards in food safety. Consumers can find the company’s branded salads, salad kits, herbs, microgreens, and tomatoes at more than 1,500 retailers and restaurants across the eastern United States.
We recently announced the new partnership between 
The Virginia Tech-IALR Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Innovation Center was created to leverage the resources of the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech along with the biotechnology, technology, and analytical chemistry capabilities of IALR to move the CEA field forward. The Center offers a one-stop shop for many cutting-edge research projects and is a wonderful vehicle to support and attract industry partners. Part of the initiative is to also serve as a catalyst and hub for CEA companies and technology, and we are already helping to create an ecosystem around CEA innovation with some leading-edge projects in waste recycling, nutrient management, imaging and data analysis, and biotechnology. All of this will be facilitated by the 
We have lots of exciting research projects happening at the moment, both internally to fuel innovation, as well as contract research to support and help solve industry challenges. There are a couple I can mention.
When we launched the Center, one of the many opportunities we were excited about was our ability to leverage our state-of-the-art conferencing center here at IALR to bring industry and academia together through hosting conferences and workshops focusing on CEA. With the CEA industry growing in Virginia, the location of the Summit is near the stakeholders that the Center is striving to serve.
The CEA Innovation Center is growing rapidly, and we are always on the lookout for mutually beneficial partnerships in research and education, including contract research opportunities.