Is Pueblo Ripe For Tomatoes?
By Tom Coleman
In the distance, a dust devil danced between cacti. Nearer the idling automobile, a lizard sat silently, deathlike, waiting for an unlucky ant to creep from the dry anthill. Clumps of crisp prairie grasses whispered in the moistureless air.
"This is exactly what I am looking for," Albert Vanzeyst said as he stared across the barren slice of the Great American Desert next to Interstate 25. The real estate agent, who had been trying to interest Vanzeyst in mountain property all day, looked at him and shook his head.
The agent's confusion was understandable. Vanzeyst had said that he wanted to look at land for hydroponic greenhouses. He was interested in buying land for growing tomatoes. The agent had chauffeured Vanzeyst along the western Arkansas River basin all day looking at prime mountain and river drainage acreage. As the mystified real estate agent looked out over the semi-arid landscape just south of Pueblo, the dry, parched dirt seemed like the last place to grow anything, much less tomatoes. Realizing he was out of his element, he gave Vanzeyst the phone number for the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation (PEDCO). Albert Vanzeyst contacted Jim Spaccamonti, president of PEDCO, and a new business venture was born.
Vanzeyst and Gill Van Der Drift, two partners in the global hydroponic greenhouse industry, had been looking for the perfect place to expand. Vanzeyst's company, Village Farms, had been growing hydroponic, pesticide-free tomatoes and specialty bell peppers in Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Mexico. He and Van Der Drift, president of Mountain High Greenhouse Construction, needed new acreage to expand their industry.
Farming
has long been one of the largest and most consistent industries of the Pueblo
region. Many families have lived and worked the farms east of Pueblo
for generations. Together with steel-making, farming formed the backbone
of the region's economy. Along the Arkansas River corridor, farming has been
successful
because
of the
availability of water, good soil conditions, and the Southern Colorado climate.
With an average growing season temperature of 70 degrees, an average of 77%
of every year filled with sunshine, 308 days of fair skies, the area is almost
perfect for agriculture. Unfortunately, this creates a challenge for a large,
new farming endeavor, as most of the arable land is already in use for crops.
The beauty of greenhouse farming is that land that is otherwise unfit for farming can be used for hydroponics. Since the plants are not grown in the raw earth, poor soil conditions do not affect their quality. Tomatoes and bell peppers, the produce Vanzeyst and Van Der Drift are mainly interested in, can be grown in peat, vermiculite, or a combination of both, which may be added to polystyrene beads or perlite. Other media such as coconut shreds, sand, sawdust, and even rock wool are common as well.
As Van Der Drift and Vanzeyst talked with the PEDCO representatives, they became more and more excited about the prospects for creating a series of farms in the region. One of the main concerns of both businessmen was whether the area they chose would be compatible for the Dutch farmers that normally form the nucleus of the farms' management.
In Holland, urban sprawl is rapidly eating up all the farmland, the majority
of which is used for greenhouse-style farming. Many farming families are being
forced out of production by the skyrocketing prices offered by land developers. "In
Holland, it is estimated in the next 10 years, 5,000 acres of greenhouses have
to disappear," Vanzeyst says. Many of these farmers and their families
are
willing to move to another part of the world to continue their livelihood
if the area is a good place to raise their children and make their homes. Pueblo,
in both the investors' opinion, is just such a place.
As the two investors, along with a core group of 12 others, began investigating possible land sites in the area, the beauty of the Pueblo area became increasingly apparent. The large amount of sun, the quality of life, the proximity to major cities, the I-25 transportation corridor, the availability of a ready workforce, institutions that train people in the areas needed for the high-tech, computer-intensive industry, and available, inexpensive land all attracted the group. Although the investors had researched areas in other states, Vanzeyst says, "It's probably no surprise to the people that Pueblo won, hands down."
NEXT: Turning an idea into reality
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