Thank you for checking this out! It's one of the simpliest things ever -- I'm trying to get everyone in the county willing to give a little money to invest in the startup of the hyrdoponics garden (and well other projects too, but I'm going for the most useful first and working up). I know what a lot of you are thinking "but I don't want to invest!" -- but I'm not talking about thousands of dollars a person (of course it'd be accepted...) we'd even take $1 from every person in the county. Why? Well if everyone in the county invested $1 -- it'd be over $20,000! It wouldn't be the best as far as creating the farm (and it'd only allow for maybe 2-5 employees, and a small single-acre sized farm) - but it'd be a great start.
But here's the best part -- anyone investing $100 or more will be given free vegetables throughout the year out of every harvest! Aeroponics/hydroponics actually allows for vegetables to be grown every month out of the year (similar to the reason you have veggies year-round in the stores), only they're produced locally, and potentially from picked to your plate within hours. This means their actually ripe, and they're grown without any pesticides, so some would consider them organic (we, however, won't consider it as such as the official label would cost a lot of money for certification).
We do have some official plans for things here, and about how much you'd get per year for investments. Basically it's a one-time investment (hopefully), and we'll provide you free vegetables for life as far as we are concerned! Now while we don't guarentee you'd get a lot of vegetables, and the number is based on the number of people donating to an extent, it would amount to around 100 vegetables a year (like tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc). Considering it's planned for this to be given every year to people donating that much, you'll be making money in a sense the first or second year at a $100 donation.
Of course we reserve the right to change things based on donations and such -- but don't worry, we'll tell you up front, and even work things out so you don't feel like you're getting the short end of the stick! The entire aeroponics/hydroponics greenhouse farm will also be open for students to see things, we'll even allow tours (guided) of the place. And yes, I, Joshua Rodgers (through qrsevlo, Inc my company), will be making money from the goods as well -- but we just need the startup funds and such!
There's a lot to this actually, and I'm sure you have questions, so please contact us for details!
© 2010 Joshua Lee Rodgers