Eden Concepts secures $650,000 grant from the USDA
The grant will go toward designing, developing, testing, and delivering a product to reduce labor and production costs for vegetable growers.
Based in Lenoir City, Eden Concepts LLC has been working for the past several years to improve the way farmers grow vegetables, flowers, & specialty crops. The start-up’s patent-pending, revolutionary precision planting system prepares and plants germinated seeds and replaces growing and transplanting seedlings. The system is proven to save farmers and gardeners both time and energy.
teknovation.biz did an in-depth feature on the innovative company and Founder, Walter Cromer in April 2023 (see article here). However, in the past year, Cromer has celebrated many milestones. Most notable is the recent announcement from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to award a $650,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase II Grant to Eden Concepts. The grant will go toward designing, developing, testing, and delivering a product to reduce labor and production costs for vegetable growers.
“Farmers everywhere have shared the increasing difficulty that they encounter finding workers to plant food crops,” Cromer said. “Many foods we enjoy, like tomatoes, are planted with transplants and require substantial investments in equipment and people. We’re working to change that process radically. Increasing all farms’ productivity is an essential goal. We are incredibly honored that the USDA continues to recognize Eden Concepts’ expertise and passion to develop and deliver a quality product that will help farmers plant with the precision they expect while greatly reducing the labor and energy required to produce a quality, successful yield.”
Over the past six years, Eden Concepts has received funding from the USDA, National Science Foundation (NSF), and LaunchTN. Cromer said that money has gone toward significantly progressing the development of the system.
His patent-pending technology improves productivity, reduces energy usage, and eliminates most of the labor in the current transplanting process. The system will deposit individual seeds precisely in fields, greenhouses, or pots or be adapted to plant microgreens. When commercially deployed, vegetable, flower, medicinal herb, and specialty crop growers can use the envisioned system worldwide.
“Labor is a huge issue for growers. But we are also very excited about our system eliminating the use of on-farm fossil fuel in the planting process and improving soil health by reducing soil compaction,” Cromer said. “The system is all-electric and lighter weight than traditional equipment.”
The two-year project, made possible by the USDA grant, will enable Eden to move from a bench-scale proof-of-concept system to field-scale units and field-test these locally and with the University of Georgia (UGA) in Tifton. UGA is a sub-awardee of the grant, and the testing is scheduled for 2026.
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