In the Appalachian foothills of Morehead, Kentucky, AppHarvest built the largest greenhouse in the United States. Its impassioned plans to open more high-tech, indoor farms and be an example of the “future of farming” have been paused as it struggles with cash flow. In its third-quarter securities filing, the company told investors “‘that it’s running out of cash,'” reports John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader. The company said, “Absent additional sources of financing, we expect that our existing cash and cash equivalents will only allow us to continue our planned operations into the first quarter of 2023.”
The company “will focus on trying to turn a profit over the next few years at its three existing farms, in Morehead, Berea and Somerset, and a fourth, in Richmond, that should be operating soon. The farms grow tomatoes, leafy greens for salads and berries,” Cheves writes. “To raise the necessary capital for its next 12 months — an estimated $85 million to $95 million — AppHarvest hopes to sell its 15-acre Berea farm to its distributor, Mastronardi Produce Limited, and then lease back the facility.”
AppHarvest CEO Jonathan Webb, a Kentucky native, told Cheves that he remains committed to his goal of employing large numbers of people at high-tech farms around the eastern half of the state. “If you’re asking today, we’re going to focus on saying, let’s get these four farms up and running in 2023, and month by month in 2023, we’ll continue to evaluate options to expand the business,” Webb told Cheves. “But I would say if you let the past be a predictor of the future, we started with absolutely nothing two and a half years ago and we’ve built eight million square feet of stuff. Anything we do going forward will never be as hard as what we’ve already done on the development side.”
“People in Eastern Kentucky are understandably skeptical about companies that come into the region and make promises about jobs,” Webb told Cheves. “But AppHarvest actually has built farms, hired people and started to deliver produce to market. … Hopefully when we have this conversation in the end of ‘23, you’ll see a company that is less about talk — and less about me talking, candidly — and more about results.”
The Rural Blog is a publication of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues based at the University of Kentucky.
